Jaguar Land Rover adds Alexa to its cars

Amazon’s voice-enabled assistant, Alexa, will be available in all the new models of Jaguar and Land Rover cars, as well as other JLR vehicles with a Pivi Pro Infotainment system, which will be added with an over-the-air update.

According to Bloomberg News, Alexa will work with navigation, media playback, phone calls, and compatible smart devices. Engineers at JLR worked with the Amazon team to integrate all of Alexa’s features into the vehicle. Its ‘intuitive’ language helps drivers keep their focus on the wheel, using simple command requests.

Customers with Alexa at home will also be able to interact with their vehicle remotely, checking for diesel and ensuring if doors are locked. Director of electrical and electronic engineering at Jaguar Land Rover, Alex Heslop says, “The seamless integration of Amazon Alexa with our Pivi Pro infotainment system gives customers simple, intuitive voice control of regularly used features, making the driving experience even more enjoyable. The fact we can also offer this new feature to existing customers proves the value of our software-over-the-air updates.”

Head of Alexa Automotive International, Christian Mentz, said that people around the world interacted with Alexa billions of times each week making their own life “easier, more productive, and more fun.” He expressed his excitement at the new project as Alexa keeps getting smarter, with new features and capabilities,

Currently, 200,000 JLR vehicles on the road have Alexa installed in their vehicles. Owners just have to link Alexa to their JLR ‘In control’ account by scanning a QR code on the screen and following instructions to set it up.