Jaguar Land Rover To Boost Investments To Become Less Dependent on Diesel

Last September, Jaguar Land Rover announced plans to begin electrifying their lineup in 2020. This means electrics, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids. There is a good reason why JLR is doing this. Bloomberg reports that the company is very dependent on diesels in Europe. In the fourth quarter of last year, 87 percent of JLR sales in the region were made up of diesel vehicles - surprising to say in the least as sales of diesels for other brands were dealing due to the Volkswagen diesel emission scandal. But it is starting to hurt Jaguar Land Rover. The company said total sales and revenue through March “did not grow as much as we planned” due to customers becoming very concerned about diesel vehicles. Margins and profit also took a hit.

To pull this off, JLR needs to spend a lot of money. At a presentation for investors yesterday, the company announced that it would be spending 13.5 billion pounds ($18 billion) for the next three years as part of their electrification plans. A fair chunk of the investment will go to JLR's plants in the United Kingdom for retooling. The goal is to offer three versions of all their models, including hybrid and plug-in hybrid models. Electric-only models will only be offered if there is enough customer demand according to a spokesman.

Source: Bloomberg (Subscription Required)