The next-generation Range Rover Evoque, Range Rover Velar and Land Rover Discovery Sport models will be exclusively offered as electric cars.
JLR (as Jaguar Land Rover is now known from today) has confirmed its Halewood, Merseyside plant will switch to making exclusively electric models from 2025 - and will build each of those three cars.
The cars will be built on a new architecture called EMA (Electric Modular Architecture). This had previously been planned to be hybrid as well as electric but will now be electric-only.
New JLR CEO Adrian Mardell said this was in response to the way the market had shifted so dramatically towards electric that it made sense for the brand’s future mid-size SUV models to do the same.
Mardell confirmed that “three vehicles, maybe four” would be built on EMA, which includes the next Evoque and Discovery Sport. The first model to come from Halewood will be “from the Range Rover family”, according to a JLR statement, and Autocar understands that model is set not to be the Evoque but the Velar, which will switch to EMA and the Halewood plant for its second generation.
The identity of the fourth model is not yet known, but it opens up the tantalising possibility of a smaller electric Defender, as well as an additional model in the Discovery range.
The new models would use batteries sourced in the longer term from a new European Tata gigafactory, but until then they would be from an external supply contract JLR has already secured.
Autocar reported last year that JLR had taken the first steps to convert Halewood to build electric vehicles, securing the factory’s future as the company begins rolling out low- and zero-emission vehicles.
As of September, the company had begun the tendering process to upgrade the factory to build cars on the new ‘native BEV’ Electrified Modular Architecture (EMA), a source close to the process told Autocar.
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There is something wrong with describing a vast Range Rover with a huge battery pack that has created a giant CO2 spike and will largely be sold into countries with electricity that's still largely fossil fuelled as 'zero emissions'.
Not very encouraging for the prospect of the batteries being produced in a giga factory in the UK. Without battery production close to the assembly plant it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see production gradually drifting to the continent.
Emm there's a surprise, cars being build in the uk and you attempt to find a negative.
Step by step, my dear Watson.
All cars are assembled you muppet. Headline is Evoque and Discovery Sport to be built at Halewood and you Remoan about a negative that every nut and bolt isn't from the UK. Your anti-british pro EU is deluding your thinking.
Yep anti-british and very bitter. So whilst JLR make cars in the UK but use bits from other countries you say, well guess what BMW and Ford use Chinese batteries too. You're grasping at straws get some rest.