Jaguar loses internal combustion engines in new EV strategy

A big change is planned for Jaguar Land Rover. The British manufacturer has a new global strategy, as new CEO Thierry Bolloré revealed earlier on Monday. There is a new roadmap for Jaguar, which will lose its internal combustion engines as it focuses on pure electric luxury cars. Six new battery-electric vehicles are in the works for Land Rover, and the company is also exploring hydrogen fuel cells.

“Jaguar Land Rover is unique in the global automotive industry,” said Bolloré. “Unparalleled model designers, unparalleled understanding of its customers’ future luxury needs, emotional brand equity, a British spirit and unparalleled access to the world’s leading technology and sustainability players within the Tata group at large. We are harnessing these ingredients today. to reinvent the business, the two brands and the customer experience of tomorrow. The Reimagine strategy allows us to value and celebrate this uniqueness like never before. Together, we can design an even more lasting and positive impact on the world around us. “

As part of the Reimagine strategy, Bolloré said JLR would become a “battery first company”. For Land Rover, six new BEVs are expected to arrive by 2026, although the first of them is not expected until 2024. Future Land Rovers will be built using a pair of new flexible vehicle architectures – Modular longitudinal architecture and electrical modular architecture — both of which are independent of the powertrain. And production of the MLA vehicles will take place in Solihull, in the British Midlands.

By 2026, the brand will also retire its diesel engines, and Bolloré has said that by 2036 Land Rover is expected to have zero tailpipe emissions, with the goal of the entire company being carbon neutral by 2039.

More engines for Jaguars

For Jaguar, Reimagine means canceling the replacement for its XJ sedan; every new Jaguar presented from now on will be a BEV. Additionally, Jaguar’s Castle Bromwich factory in Birmingham, England – which currently builds the XE, XF and F-Types, and which was expected to build the new XJ – will cease operations as a car factory when these three models reach the end of their production. life cycles. But instead of shutting down the site, Bolloré says Jaguar will consider moving other businesses there, including expanding its lucrative group of special vehicle operations at the site.

These future Jaguars will all use a new electric vehicle architecture and the manufacturing of the BEVs will take place at the JLR plant in Solihull. (Solihull currently builds the Jaguar F-Pace as well as the Range Rovers.) But designing and building an all-new BEV platform isn’t a minute’s work, so Jaguar’s all-electric future isn’t. is expected to start only in 2025. What this means is that Jaguar’s traditional two-seater sports cars are unclear, but a replacement for the F-Type is by no means certain given the low sales volumes.