All future Jaguar Land Rover Models will feature Aluminium construction, like the new Jaguar XJ
Jaguar Land Rover are investing £800 million in new technology to create a range of world beating Jaguars and Land Rovers.
Yesterday we reported on two bits of news from JLR. First up was confirmation of our story from last month that the Range Rover LRX will debut in 2010 and go on sale in 2011. Good news. The second report centred around JLR’s announcement that they would be closing one of their Midlands plants. Bad news.
But actually, I think we were a bit disingenuous. We took the easy good news/bad news option. Easy reporting and a headline or two. We didn’t look deeply enough in to what JLR were actually saying. So we had a chat with JLR last night. A long chat. And it was very enlightening.
Yes, JLR are going to close one of their Midlands plants. And in fact, despite the reports yesterday saying they’ll make a decision on which one in the next eighteen months, they will make the decision by next Summer. Which will it be? They really haven’t made the decision yet, but our money’s still on Solihull. So surely this means that Tata have decreed that JLR slash costs and dig in for the long term? Actually, no.
This whole restructuring is about moving JLR forward, not about slashing the workforce and cutting costs. The truth is that JLR are investing £800 million in new technology – in particular a move to aluminium construction – and responding to the demands of climate change with hybrid and electric technology.
So how can Jaguar claim there will be no compulsory redundancies if, as seems likely, they close Solihull? What do they do with the 5000 workers at Solihull? Well, as JLR quite reasonably pointed out, Castle Bromwich currently runs a single shift system. They could easily move to a three-shift system and swallow up the Solihull workforce in its entirety. And JLR were at pains to point out that it was in fact they who took the plan to the unions to broker a deal on no compulsory redundancies, not the other way round. A significant difference.
We also said yesterday that we saw Jaguar production being centred at Castle Bromwich and Land Rover at Halewood. But that would seem to be too simplistic. The intention is that the new, lightweight JLR cars will – to a great degree – share platforms and engines. Which means there is unlikely to be that sort of Jaguar/Land Rover separation between the two remaining plants.
So what are the plans for the future? Simple. New, highly efficient models for both Jaguar and Land Rover. Did they tell us what they would be? No, of course not, but we can make a pretty good guess. At Land Rover, we already know that the Range Rover LRX is coming. There will be new, lightweight and far more efficient Range Rovers and Discoveries in 2012/2013. We still think there may well be a stretched, seven-seat Freelander – the Ventura? – on the cards. And the Defender will probably carry on. It doesn’t really fit in to the Land Rover range, but it’s probably too iconic to bin. At least in the short to medium term. So you’re probably looking at a range of at least seven Land Rovers by 2014.
And what of Jaguar’s range? We already have the very successful XF, and the new XJ is just round the corner. Even the XK is now the car it should always have been after the recent updates. We have no doubts that Jaguar will produce a coupe version of the XF, and probably of the XJ. There could even be a convertible version of the XF Coupe. There will also be a smaller sports car – the Jaguar XE – which will take the fight to Audi and Porsche. And there is a chance of a halo GT car at the top of the Jaguar range. So the Jaguar range will be of a similar size to the Land Rover one. And the cars will be modern, lightweight and highly efficient. Just look at what Jaguar is already doing with the XJ Limo-Green.
There is no doubt JLR have suffered. Their production is half what it should be. And it would have been easy for Tata to slash and burn in the UK and move production overseas. But they’re not. They’re investing heavily in a JLR future in the UK. We have no doubts that JLR will also end up making cars in India – they’d be mad not too – but we’re convinced that Tata and JLR are in this for the long haul in the UK.
We were guilty of lazy reporting yesterday. We went for the good news/bad news angle. As did everyone else. But with a bit more work it’s now clear that Jaguar Land Rover are hugely bullish about the future. And frankly, they have every right to be. There is no reason to think that the new cars in the pipeline will be any less impressive than the XF and XJ. Which will give JLR a model range that will be very hard to beat. Yes, they have big issues, but they had two choices. Give up, or fight. JLR have come out fighting.
The future really does looks bright.
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