Jaguar Land Rover will not build its own EV battery factory

While Tata would build cells for JLR models with chemistry and technology co-developed between JLR and Tata, battery packs themselves for JLR cars would be built at its Hams Hall plant, with further sites possible, according to Bergmeier, depending on where the Tata plant is located. 

The comments were made at an update on JLR’s Reimagine strategy, which will shape the future of the brands. Mardell was previously chief financial officer, one of 19 roles he has held at JLR since joining as an apprentice 32 years ago. 

The Reimagine strategy itself was “unchanged”, he confirmed, adding that the “mandate was to deliver and execute, not to change” the plan that has the full backing of Tata.

“We’ve made good progress to date. Now it’s accelerating delivery over the next two to three years,” he said. “The focus now is on delivery and execution. The strategy is clear.”

JLR was cash positive and profitable in the past quarter, and its general financial trend and position was continually improving, reducing debt (it is now below £3 billion for the first time in three years) and freeing up money for more investments, with a goal of being net cash positive by 2025.

Indeed, work on controlling costs and improving profits has reduced JLR’s break-even point to under 300,000 models per year. Four years ago it was 660,000, and two years ago 400,000. The average price of a JLR car has increased from £44,000 to £71,000 since 2019. 

Mardell said Tata would be investing £3bn per year over the next five years, a 50% increase over its historical investment levels. Part of this will be to upskill 29,000 staff, preparing them to work on electrified models. JLR was also adding 250 engineers per month in the Midlands to its 40,000-strong global workforce.

Quality remained a big focus for JLR to continue to improve, said Mardell. “Some of the quality in the past has not been acceptable,” he said. “We have made lots of improvements in the past three years, and the faults per vehicle has improved 30% since then.”

The future JLR range will be built on three architectures, down from seven now. Halewood will build mid-size electric cars based on a new EMA (electrified modular architecture). This was originally planned as a hybrid architecture but is now a pure-electric one, with “three vehicles, maybe four” from 2025. 

The MLA (Modular Longitudinal Architecture) seen on the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport vehicles will spawn its first electric car at the end of 2024 with the full-size Range Rover EV built at Solihull. Orders for this car will open at the end of 2023.

The Slovakia plant, home to the Discovery and Defender, will build electric cars as they switch to the MLA EV platform in their next generations.