An electric model of the Range Rover EV. Image: Jaguar Land Rover
The plan includes making one of Jaguar Land Rover’s UK plants fully electric and launching a new Jaguar EV later this year.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced plans to invest £15bn over the next five years in ramping up its electric vehicle production as the luxury carmaker aims to be carbon net-zero by 2039.
Plans include converting one of its UK plants in Halewood into an exclusively electric car manufacturing facility and turning its Wolverhampton factory that makes internal combustion engines into a producer of electric motors and other related parts.
Owned by India’s Tata Group, JLR also revealed yesterday (19 April) that the first of its three planned electric cars will be a £100,000 Jaguar four-door ‘grand tourer’ built in the UK. The move is part of its ‘Reimagine’ strategy launched two years ago.
Adrian Mardell, CEO of JLR, said that the carmaker’s flagship Range Rover SUV will be available for pre-order in pure electric form later this year.
“We are stepping into an incredibly exciting new electric era for JLR as a modern luxury business,” Mardell said.
“I am proud to announce we are accelerating our electrification path, making one of our UK plants and our next-generation medium-size luxury SUV architecture fully electric.”
JLR has previously committed to making its struggling Jaguar brand all-electric by 2025 amid criticism that the company has been lagging in the move to electric compared to others in the same space, such as Rolls-Royce, Audi and even Rivian.
While JLR has revealed very little about the electric Jaguar on its way, the company said more information on the four-door GT Jaguar will be released later this year before going on sale in “selected markets” next year.
“We have radically reimagined Jaguar as a modern luxury brand. The key to Jaguar’s transformation is that the designs convey that they are a copy of nothing,” said JLR chief creative officer Prof Gerry McGovern.
“Our ultimate ambition is to build truly emotionally engaging experiences for our clients that, overtime, will build long-term high equity for our brands and long-term sustainability for JLR.”
The company, which has a growing Irish operation at its site in Shannon, Co Clare, recently announced it is opening three new engineering hubs in Europe to develop autonomous vehicles in partnership with Nvidia.
The hubs in Munich, Bologna and Madrid will help JLR develop the next generation of self-driving luxury cars.
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