Part of a £1 billion remaking of the company’s UK manufacturing plant
Jaguar Land Rover’s second all-electric car will be a new version of its XJ sedan, the company said on Friday. The plan to make an electric XJ was announced as part of a £1 billion ($1.25 billion) investment the company will make to retool its manufacturing plant in Castle Bromwich in the UK ahead of a greater push into electric vehicles.
The new electric XJ will be developed by the same team that created the I-Pace, Jaguar’s first EV, which was released in 2018. (The I-Pace is currently built by a contract manufacturer in Austria.) Jaguar Land Rover says it will make a “new range” of electrified vehicles at the revamped UK plant, and all models from 2020 onward will have electric or hybrid options. But the company didn’t offer any more information on what specific models it plans to release or a timeline for the electric XJ, and it confirmed it will keep making diesel vehicles.
The British automaker (which is owned by India’s Tata Motors) is framing the investment as a way to “safeguard thousands of jobs” in the UK. Jaguar Land Rover laid off 4,500 workersearlier this year, most of them in the UK, after cutting some 1,500 jobs last year. The automaker cited declining demand for diesel cars, a cooling of the Chinese auto market, and Brexit as reasons for the cuts.