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New Jaguar XE OFFICIALLY launched – price from £27,000

The new Jaguar XE arrives After months of teasing, years of planning and huge sums of money spent, it’s here – the new Jaguar XE. Looking like a slightly smaller version of the XF, with an upright nose, longish bonnet, coupe-like profile and stubby tail, the XE is clearly a Jaguar – and a fairly conservative one at that – which is probably sensible when  entering such a competitive sector as the ‘Premium’ compact saloon market. But the new XE isn’t just a punt for a few sales in a new sector for Jaguar, but a car that could take Jaguar from an interesting maker of relatively low volume cars to a global ‘Premium’ car maker; nose to nose in a very competitive sector with, principally, Audi and the A4, BMW and the 3 Series and Mercedes and the C-Class.

Ah, to be in Paris . . .

Well, I'm bummed. The Paris motor show press days are next week, and I'm not going. That's right; while my colleagues are cavorting in one of the world's great cities, I'll be here in the Paris of the Midwest, holding down the proverbial fort.

Fiat 500 Electric 2012 launch

The Fiat 500 Electric Concept was at the Detroit Motor Show this year At the 2010 Detroit Motor Show Fiat brought along an electric concept version of the Fiat 500, together with a Chrysler-badged Lancia as a clear indication that times are changing at Chrysler. And it would appear they’re changing even more quickly than we expected with the announcement that the Fiat 500 EV is going in to production, and will go on sale in the US in 2012. Obviously spurred on by the unexpected success in recent years of that other motoring retro icon the MINI, Fiat are pushing ahead with plans to introduce the regular Fiat 500 in to North America in 2010, although that will be preceded by the 500 Abarth and 500C Abarth, which will be the first versions of the 500 to reach American shores.