Jaguar Land Rover will not build its own EV battery factory

Jaguar Land Rover will not build its own electric vehicle battery factory, company CEO Adrian Mardell has confirmed. JLR has been linked with several gigafactory sites across the Midlands and beyond over recent years but has now confirmed it will instead become the “anchor partner” of a planned gigafactory by its parent company, Tata. This factory will be in Europe, but not necessarily in the UK. “JLR will not be building a gigafactory. That is not in our plans,” Mardell said, speaking to the media for the first time since taking over from Thierry Bolloré as JLR CEO in November. An announcement from Tata was “hopefully imminent”, Mardell added, but even so he expected it to not be on stream for four to five years. More Jaguar Land Rover news: - Official: JLR owner to build £4bn battery factory in UK by 2026 - 2025 Jaguar EV to be £100,000 four-door GT with 430-mile range - Land Rover to build Evoque, Velar, Discovery Sport EVs at Halewood The first electric Range Rover will come in 2024 and the second electric Jaguar in 2025, along with electric models from Halewood from 2025, too. The Tata factory will not be ready to supply battery cells for these models, so instead Mardell confirmed that “agreements were in place with luxury battery suppliers” for this first wave of models. “Battery supply will not be a reason for missing anything,” he added, in relation to those targeted on-sale dates for the first electric models. "A gigafactory is not in our plans" - Adrian Mardell Barbara Bergmeier, JLR’s executive director for industrial operations, confirmed this battery supply was mainly from one supplier and the contract had been signed. Further supply agreements could be reached to bridge the gap to the Tata factory ramping up. She added that the decision on where Tata builds its gigafactory would have no impact on the future production locations of JLR models. While Tata would build cells for JLR models with chemistry and technology co-developed between JLR and Tata, battery packs themselves for JLR cars would be built at its Hams Hall plant, with further sites possible, according to Bergmeier, depending on where the Tata plant is located. The comments were made at an update on JLR’s Reimagine strategy, which will shape the future of the brands. Mardell was previously chief financial officer, one of 19 roles he has held at JLR since joining as an apprentice 32 years ago. The Reimagine strategy itself was “unchanged”, he confirmed, adding that the “mandate was to deliver and execute, not to change” the plan that has the full backing of Tata. “We’ve made good progress to date. Now it’s accelerating delivery over the next two to three years,” he said. “The focus now is on delivery and execution. The strategy is clear.” JLR was cash positive and profitable in the past quarter, and its general financial trend and position was continually improving, reducing debt (it is now below £3 billion for the first time in three years) and freeing up money for more investments, with a goal of being net cash positive by 2025. Indeed, work on controlling costs and improving profits has reduced JLR’s break-even point to under 300,000 models per year. Four years ago it was 660,000, and two years ago 400,000. The average price of a JLR car has increased from £44,000 to £71,000 since 2019. Mardell said Tata would be investing £3bn per year over the next five years, a 50% increase over its historical investment levels. Part of this will be to upskill 29,000 staff, preparing them to work on electrified models. JLR was also adding 250 engineers per month in the Midlands to its 40,000-strong global workforce. Quality remained a big focus for JLR to continue to improve, said Mardell. “Some of the quality in the past has not been acceptable,” he said. “We have made lots of improvements in the past three years, and the faults per vehicle has improved 30% since then.” The future JLR range will be built on three architectures, down from seven now. Halewood will build mid-size electric cars based on a new EMA (electrified modular architecture). This was originally planned as a hybrid architecture but is now a pure-electric one, with “three vehicles, maybe four” from 2025. The MLA (Modular Longitudinal Architecture) seen on the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport vehicles will spawn its first electric car at the end of 2024 with the full-size Range Rover EV built at Solihull. Orders for this car will open at the end of 2023. The Slovakia plant, home to the Discovery and Defender, will build electric cars as they switch to the MLA EV platform in their next generations. Jaguar models will be built at Solihull on a new dedicated architecture called Jaguar Electrified Architecture. The goal is for each of the four brands to have an electric car by 2026, each model in the JLR range to have an electric version by 2030, and every car sold to be electric by 2036. JLR wants to be carbon net zero by 2039. The Castle Bromwich plant, home to the current Jaguar range, will have its stamping operations expanded, but beyond that Bergmeier said JLR was still exploring opportunities for the plant, which will remain open. The engine factory in Wolverhampton will be renamed as the Electric Propulsion Manufacturing Centre.