Jaguar Land Rover opens engine plant in China, its FIRST engine plant outside UK

Jaguar Land Rover opens engine plant in China, its FIRST engine plant outside UK

Jaguar Land Rover has opened a new engine plant in China – its first outside the UK – to build the 2.0 litre Ingenium petrol engine for the Chinese market.

It’s only a couple of weeks since we learnt that Jaguar Land Rover will be building the new Jaguar E-Pace on Austria and China – but not in the UK.

Now, we learn that, for the first time, JLR are going to be building engines outside the UK too, with a new engine plant opening in China to build the new 2.0 litre Ingenium petrol engine for the cars JLR builds in China already. Which makes perfect sense.

JLR has invested £1.2 billion in its new joint venture facility with Chery, which started operations just three years ago, and is now building more than 100,000 cars a year there.

They include the Range Rover Evoque, Land Rover Discovery Sport and Jaguar XFL (a long wheelbase version of the XF just for China). They will also build the new E-Pace from next year.

JLR say the new Plant in Changshu will mirror its UK engine facility, with machining and assembly halls – totalling more than 50,000 sq m – delivering a flexible facility with 28 robots doing the donkey work.

Murray Dietsch, Chery Jaguar Land Rover President, said:

Our new engine plant incorporates the latest cutting-edge engine manufacturing technologies from Jaguar Land Rover to deliver the new Ingenium petrol engine to our Chinese customers and today’s opening ceremony is another important milestone for the team in Changshu.

It’s a sensible move, and one which protects JLR from the political vagaries in Europe affecting Chinese production, and is probably the only way to grow with UK facilities working at pretty much maximum capacity.