Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) boss Thierry Bolloré has confirmed that the firm is aiming to find a partner to help develop a new EV platform that will underpin Jaguar's reinvention as an electric-only luxury brand.
The transformation of Jaguar into an electric-only rival to Aston Martin and Bentley is a key part of Bolloré's Reimagine strategy to revive the fortunes of the British firm.
Under that plan, Jaguar will go electric-only from 2025 onwards, with all of its models built on a dedicated EV platform for luxury cars. Land Rover, meanwhile, will use two different platforms and offer a mix of powertrains.
With the high cost of developing a new vehicle architecture, it had been expected that JLR would look for a partner, either to buy a platform from or to share the development costs with.
Bolloré confirmed that plan during an investor presentation, stating that JLR is in talks with "a selection of actors" with a "massive appetite" to work with the firm.
He added that the choice of partner would be determined by the design of future Jaguar models, saying that any platform will have to "respect the proportions" of the firm's concepts.
Bolloré did say that, if a suitable platform supplier can't be found, the firm is prepared to develop the new platform itself. If that happens, he added, the process will be "design-led". He said: "There's no point doing what we are doing with Jaguar unless these products are drop-dead gorgeous."
JLR design chief Gerry McGovern added: "Great design begins with volume of proportions, and Jaguars will have significantly different volumes of proportion compared to Land Rovers.
"We need to look for opportunities out there in terms of architectures that we could utilise or refine to give the stunning jaw-dropping Jaguars I’m talking about.”
The decision to push Jaguar upmarket to a premium market position will involve lowering the brand's total sales volume. JLR is aiming to lower its overall production capacity by around 25% over the next five years.
In an investor presentation, JLR said that the target group for the future EV-only Jaguar brand is a "wealthier, younger, urban, creatively minded group".
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This makes sense. If they intend to use shared EV platforms from here on it wouldn't be practicable to also be using an older JLR-specific platform for one model. They must have calculated that it's more efficient to cut their significant losses now and commit fully to this new shared EV platform strategy going forward. Brave decision, and hopefully the right one.