There are 648 scissor lifts – cherry pickers, access platforms, call ’em what you will – at the new Jaguar Land Rover factory in Nitra, Slovakia. Not ‘about 650’, not ‘more than 600’, or – God forbid – ‘647’, because that would, logistically, be one too few. No. There are 648. Precisely.
This place is overwhelming. To me, anyway. Perhaps not you. Maybe you build car factories for a living. But to me, it’s bewildering. As I write, there are 4000 people working through the Slovakian summer, making a new factory on a site that was, this time last year, flat ground.
It’s overwhelming because it’s a car plant. I’ve seen those before, and very impressive they are too, but, not to put too fine a point on it, once they’re up, they do the same thing every day. You put in some metal and plastic at one end and, although mechanical and electronic wizardry occurs along the way, you get an appropriate and understandable number of cars out of the other. It’s like that episode of Bagpuss where the mice make the same biscuits over and over again: material in, material out. Easy enough to grasp.
A car factory under construction, though, is something else. Honestly, where do you start? Apparently, in correspondence with the Slovakian government, who say they’ll give you £125 million if you build your new factory in their back yard rather than in Mexico. Then you look down the back of the sofa to find the rest of the £1 billion the factory might cost. The EU is looking into that government grant, in case it was the reason JLR said ‘no’ to somewhere else within the EU, because that’s not the point of such grants (although it does prompt the question: “What is the point, then?”). But apparently, such toothsucking is inevitable. Besides, Volkswagen, the PSA Group and Kia already make cars in Slovakia. It is not an unusual business decision.
I’m getting ahead of myself. The factory visit is for three days’ time and will be the destination after I’ve spent 1300 miles or more at the wheel of a Land Rover Discovery, which is so far the only vehicle JLR has confirmed it will build in Slovakia.
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I got a bit lost in the plot
I got a bit lost in the plot of this article... something like two blokes get given very pricey luxury car to prove that travelling a long distance is nicer in erm.. a very pricey luxury car (they should have been made to do the return trip in a Panda as a reference), they go visit a factory that will be making that great British brand car in, oh not Britain! thanks to a dodgy bung from a country wise enough (unlike us fools) to stick two fingers up to the EU when it suits them - like for securing valuable jobs but still happy enough to go back to Brussels with the wheelbarrow for their handout paid for by taxpayers in richer countries (again us fools). With a sub plot that even the uncompetitive Ingenium engines are not so crap if you wrap it in enough 75k car, its just the 35K ones it sucks in. So that's all right then.
Sounds about right
The 4-cylinder version sounds about par for the course. It's got the same power to weight ratio as the 3/4 TDV6. Same as the Range Rover Sport with this engine. It is expensive though.
to all those saying it's not for you - that's fine of course. Volvo make a similar priced car. They don't sell anything above a 4 cylinder anymore. Tesla as have zero cylinders. They can be over $100k. The mass car market future is not big capacity engines...
PS Matt... you seem to be the Land Rover writer of choice. Could, you know, pretty please, just a little, go easy on the commas? Or get someone to edit beforehand! It's almost painful to read.
AlexF512 wrote:
You are indeed correct, Volvo do offer a similar priced car 4 cylinder vehicle, the fully loaded top of the range, 407bhp T8 petrol plug in hybrid XC90 Inscription Pro at a shade under £70k. Or you could get the equivalent diesel version with the same power as the Disco, but with better performance, lower emmisions and a lower price.
And then it becomes subjective...
Volvo or Land Rover etc. And the Disco actually starts st £45k or so, not £70k. All of the arguments need to consider the range of pricing. The SD4 is also way more efficient, and by some measure faster too. The standard V6 tops out at 112mph. This article fails to include that stat when talking about the 121mph top speed. Really the majority comments on this piece are the usual Autocar reader nonsense.
AlexF512 wrote:
And the £44k S spec SD4 comes with cloth seats, halogen headlights, and thats about it, not even a basic satnav .. If you want leather you have to go for the £50k SE variant.
@AlexF512
" The SD4 faster by some measure too than the V6 topping out at 121"
Like I give a shit living in a country with a 70 mph limit. As long as the car cruises well at 80-90mph that just about covers anywhere you are likely to go.
Good business decision, Discovery blow up
Well done to JLR for building this plant and having the volume options in Austra too. Gives them ways of dealing with Brexit and differential labour costs.
Not well done for ruining the big Discovery. D3 and 4 were great, the new one is a big miss in front of an open goal. Even the Disco forum has stopped discussing it as everyone can't believe what JLR has done to it - see the comment in the Telegraph Saturday.