► How JLR plans to hit 1million sales by 2020
► Three new factories to be built across the world
► Four new cars expected by 2018 to help with push
Jaguar Land Rover has been surfing a wave of growth and positivity these past few years. Nonetheless, 2015 looks like a stepchange year. The company announced plans for two new factories, cranked up serious production in two more, invested to double engine production and revealed plans to return to racing. While a slowdown in its key market – China – hit earnings and sales, record US, European and UK registrations propelled JLR to an unprecedented volume of 487,065 vehicles. While officials are cautious to avoid saying so publicly, JLR has laid the foundations to break the 1m car barrier by 2020. That would see the company doubling in size, for the second time in a decade. Here’s the blueprint underpinning a big British success story.
The growth numbers
New cars in the 1m push
Jaguar F-Pace (2016): Handsome crossover is poised to become Jag’s best-selling model as it surfs the global SUV craze.
Discovery (2016): Big seven-seater arrives in the autumn; switches to aluminium and less boxy look.
Range Rover ‘X3’ (2017/8): The X3-sized gap in the Range Rover line-up will be filled with an aluminium, adventurous-looking midize SUV.
Defender (2018): New, lightweight Defender to come with two wheelbases, five or seven seats, multiple bodystyles, hose-down basic and luxo versions.
The factories
I54 Wolverhampton
For 12 years, Ford supplied JLR’s four-cylinder engines, until this plant opened beside the M54 motorway. It made around 60k diesels in 2015; a petrol is due this year. And JLR is doubling investment to £1bn; expect that money to pave the way for six-cylinder versions and hybrids.
Est 2015
Itatiaia, Brazil
JLR putting the finishing touches to its first solely owned plant outside the UK, vital to avoid crippling import taxes; Evoque and Disco Sport assembled from UK parts kits. 24,000 capacity to remain theoretical for a while, as the Brazilian market is tanking.
Coming 2016
Halewood
Workforce has tripled as £500m spent bringing out Evoque and Disco Sport. With China and Brazil taking up slack, there’s capacity for this year’s Evoque cabrio.
Est 2001
Castle Bromwich
New, £320m aluminium bodyshop came on stream in 2015; plant can switch between the XF, XJ and F-type.
Est 1977
Solihull
Once an antiquated joke, the Defender’s former home now features Europe’s largest aluminium body shop and a new, second assembly hall, where the Range Sport goes down the same line as the XE and F-Pace Jags. £1.5bn invested since 2010.
Est 1945, rebuilt 2010-14
Graz, Austria
JLR has annexed capacity at the Austrian plant run by Tier 1 supplier Magna Steyr, ‘to build some future vehicles’. We’re expecting an all-electric Jaguar SUV to be in there by 2018. Think of it as a flexible release valve for British plants that are pretty much bulging at the seams.
Coming 2017
Nitra, Slovakia
The big one: work on JLR’s first European manufacturing plant outside the UK starts in 2016, with an initial 150k capacity. Why Slovakia? Lower costs, and VW, PSA and Kia factories have created a supplier base. Good distribution links to promising eastern markets too. Expect it to build two models, including a new Land Rover – maybe the Defender.
Coming 2018
Pune, India
India is Tata’s home, but posh saloons niche in a market of low-cost cars and mopeds. Pune makes a few thousand XFs, XJs and Evoques a year, but it’s primed for India’s take-off.
Est 2011
Changshu, China
With its paintshop, bodyshop and aluminium facility, JLR and partner Chery are now poised to make inroads in the world’s biggest (though slowing) car market. Jag XF should join the Evoque and Disco Sport in production this year; capacity is 130,000 units.
Est 2014
And there’s more….
Jaguar Racing
Jaguar is seeking to write a new chapter in global motorsport, when it joins the Formula E electric race series in autumn 2016. The programme will help JLR develop and test battery and motor technology, in parallel with engineering battery-electric road cars.
Special Vehicle Operations
Established in 2014 as JLR’s answer to AMG, the high-performance division is moving into its bespoke Oxford Road HQ. There’ll be a customer commissioning suite, a sophisticated paintshop capable of bespoke colours, and engineers cooking up the next wave of extreme Jags and Land Rovers, plus heritage side projects.