The head of Jaguar Land Rover’s parent company is open to the British firm seeking further partnerships with other car makers – saying it is the “only way” to fund the necessary investment in future technologies.
Jaguar Land Rover has suffered heavy losses in recent months due to falling sales, which have also hit the profits of its Indian parent firm Tata Motors. But JLR is facing the need to invest in electric powertrains, autonomous systems and mobility services for the future.
Jaguar Land Rover has agreed a partnership with the BMW Group to jointly develop electrified powertrain components. Autocar has learned that partnership is set to expand to include engine sharing – and, as revealed in this week’s magazine, could lead to select JLR models being built on BMW Group platforms in the future.
Speaking at Tata Motors’ AGM, chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran said that he was open to more partnerships in the future.
“Like any other auto company, JLR has to invest in future technologies to address the move away from [internal combustion engines] to hybrid and electric,” he said. “It also has to invest in future models, make necessary investments in areas like shared mobility, and also beyond that. That's very important to stay alive in this ecosystem.
"All this means is there is a need for capital investment if you want to be future-ready. The only way to handle this need for [capital investment] is additional investment through partnerships, because we want to spread the investment. There are many discussions underway, from tactical to strategic.”
Asked about future partnership opportunities, Chandrasekaran added: “These opportunities keep coming and we keep evaluating every one of these opportunities and as long as it is in the interest of Tata Motors, we will forge such partnerships so that we are able to address the capex.”
Tata was recently reported to be in talks to sell Jaguar Land Rover to the French PSA Group, which it denied at the time.
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JLR models on BMW platforms
JLR models on BMW platforms is the most intriguing line
The obvious gap is for a premium transverse engined platform, a future small "Freelander" vehicle sharing the MINI Clubman/1 series/X1 platform?
Scary......
Scary if the leadership at Tata is only just waking up to this need for outside investment. Got to agree with lambo58 on this one.
Hurrah
I was worried we would miss the sage advice of lambo, but he has managed to make the so called experts look foolish with this simple insight.
I try not to dissapoint and I
I try not to dissapoint and I would like to see JLR succeed but throwong money at it particularly at our expense is not wise, it catastrophic.
Many owners and huge amounts of money have been thrown at this disaster on wheels with little or no success.
It needs profound leadership to steer it on a razor sharp focus.
Not this