Jaguar Land Rover looking to BMW and Geely for help

Tata, owners of Jaguar Land Rover, are said to have reached out to both BMW and Geely as they look for partners to drive future growth.

Last month we reported Tata chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran conceding that Jaguar Land Rover really need a partner to be able to move forward in a new age of electrification and technology.

But he made clear that Tata don’t want to sell JLR, but they do want to find a partner to share the costs of delivering new technologies and electric cars to market as JLR strives to recover from the array of obstacles – from Brexit to diesel, quality issues to model overlap – which has weighed it down in recent times.

Of course, JLR already has a co-operation deal with BMW to develop new EV technologies – an arrangement which will almost certainly see Jaguar Land Rover using BMW engines – and further co-operation would seem to be a sensible, symbiotic move for both BMW and JLR.

Now, according to Bloomberg, Tata has reached out to both BMW and Volvo owners Geely looking to develop a relationship beneficial to both in an age where even the biggest car makers – like VW and Ford – are working together to mitigate costs.

Although on the face of it a deal between JLR and BMW would seem the obvious one, a deal with Geely would potentially have big benefits for JLR in China – a big cause of JLR’s current woes. And Geely certainly know what to do with a former Ford Premium product. Just look at where Volvo is now under Geely’s stewardship.

Apparently Geely has said they have had no talks with Tata or JLR, but BMW simply declined to comment. Read in to that what you will.