JLR confirms new vehicle will be produced in the West Midlands
Jaguar Land Rover has given a shot in the arm to the West Midlands automotive industry by confirming that its new vehicle will be produced in the region.
The Range Rover Velar, the fourth member of the 47-year old Range Rover family, received its official launch last night.
In doing so, the company confirmed that the vehicle would be produced at its Lode Lane plant in Solihull – the historic home of Land Rover.
Jaguar Land Rover operates four UK-based plants – three in the West Midlands (including its i54 engine manufacturing centre) – which between them directly support more than 40,000 British jobs and a further 250,000 in the supply chain.
In the past six years the company has more than doubled its workforce to support global demand for its products. Last year Jaguar Land Rover sold 583,313 cars – more than one every minute, 44% of which were Range Rovers.
Since going on sale in 1970 the Range Rover family, heralded Britain’s greatest luxury export, has grown to include the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover Evoque. Together they have helped transform the fortunes of the UK’s largest vehicle manufacturer, accounting for 85% of all premium cars produced in Britain and contributing £10bn to the UK economy every year.
Dr Ralf Speth, Jaguar Land Rover CEO, said: “The expansion of our product range and building this British designed and engineered car in the UK is a sign of our confidence in British manufacturing. We are leading the global premium car industry with our commitment to our home market and our heart, soul and headquarters will always be in the UK.”
Built using Jaguar Land Rover’s lightweight aluminium architecture and powered by the latest ultra-clean Wolverhampton-built Ingenium petrol and diesel engines, the new Velar is positioned between the Range Rover Evoque and the Range Rover Sport.
The Velar is the third model to be launched at the Solihull manufacturing plant in just two years. It follows an injection of £1.5bn in new facilities and technologies at the plant which began with the Jaguar XE and F-Pace.
The new model will be sold in more than 100 markets globally and is available to order from summer 2017.
The vehicle, unveiled to an invited audience at the Design Museum in London, features a suite of consumer technologies, working together to create what the company has dubbed, an in-built technology butler called Touch Pro Duo.
The last time Land Rover displayed a vehicle in this way was in the early 1970s when the original Range Rover was shown at the world-famous Louvre Museum in Paris, as an example of “exemplary industrial design”.
The new model was also simultaneously shown for one night only in a pop-up display on Kensington High Street, West London, alongside the Range Rover Evoque, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover.
