Jaguar Land Rover announces £15bn of investment into EV plans

Jaguar Land Rover will invest £15bn into electrification plans over five years while switching its Halewood plant into a fully-electric facility.

It has also rebranded as JLR, with its cars positioned underneath Range Rover, Discovery, Defender and Jaguar nameplates. However, there has been no mention of the Land Rover brand in this announcement.

The firm has also stated that its upcoming medium-size SUV will be pure electric.

JLR’s chief executive Adrian Mardell said it was speeding up its electrification plans, but also reaffirmed the company’s commitment to its Reimagine strategy.

“Two years ago, we launched our Reimagine strategy and since then we have made great progress, including launching two new critically acclaimed modern luxury Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models, joining the Defender family, for which there is record demand.

“We achieved this while navigating the headwinds of the pandemic and chip shortages, and successfully ramping up production of our most profitable models to deliver profit in Q3,’ said Mardell.

“Today 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.

“This investment enables us to deliver to our modern luxury electric future, developing new skills, and reaffirming our commitment to be net zero carbon by 2039.”

Advance orders for the electric Range Rover are set to be accepted later this year, with its full launch coming in 2025. It’s due to be built at Halewood, too.

Though its upcoming new platform will be electric-only, JLR has said that it will keep the flexible modular longitudinal architecture which currently underpins the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport so that regular internal combustion engines, hybrid setups and fully electric versions can still be offered.