UK's leading premium car maker, Jaguar Land Rover, has declared to make a massive investment worth £370 million in order to upgrade its production facilities in UK, which will assist the auto maker in increasing its production potential. The move was taken by the company in light of introducing its all-new Range Rover in around 170 auto markets of the world.
The deliveries of fourth edition Range Rover are believed to start from September 2012, which will be followed by a three-year engineering project. With this, the company plans to support 1000 recruitments in the field of product as well as design development and production process at Jaguar Land Rover. Interestingly, fourth generation model of Range Rover happens to be the most sophisticated Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) in the world.
On the new development, Chief Executive Officer of Jaguar Land Rover, Dr. Ralf Speth, commented, “This outstanding new Range Rover symbolises our commitment to investing in Britain and exporting around the world, delivering class-leading performance, agility, quality and luxury in a model that enjoys iconic status in almost every market. As the UK’s leading automotive investor in R&D we are proud of the work that has gone into developing the new technologies and innovations to make the new Range Rover possible. Through a £370m investment in our manufacturing facilities we have been able to build the world’s first SUV with lightweight all-aluminium construction, a car that is 20 per cent lighter, with fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions reduced by 22 per cent.”
Being a part of £370 million project, the company has equipped a new aluminium body shop for the designing of new Range Rover at its Solihull plant, situated near Birmingham. Besides, provisions to paint-applications technologies, trim assembly, warehousing and company’s first customer handover centre will be also installed at the unit. At its Solihull plant, Jaguar Land Rover has employed over 6,800 employees in the development process of Range Rover and other models.
The launch of Range Rover is a part of company's aggressive strategy, according to which it will introduce much-hyped Jaguar F-Type sports car and XF Sportbrake model. Dr. Speth later added, “Jaguar Land Rover is firing on all cylinders, generating export revenues of close to £8 billion a year as we meet demand for a model-range that justifies continued expansion in our UK facilities and elsewhere.”
The company's Chief Executive organised the launch of latest Range Rover off late in Richmond Park, London. Limelight of the event was shared by few potential customers of the company, dealers, media and company officials. Interferingly, the delivery of the model to buyers will commence from early 2013, around 40 years after the first generation model of Range Rover was introduced.
With its lightweight aluminium platform, the upcoming model will have an improved performance and mileage with controlled CO2 emissions. All these advancements in the production process demands capital expenditure, which also helped the company generate over new 8,000 jobs in the last two years.
Reportedly, Jaguar Land Rover invested an excess of £1.3 billion on its distributors all across the world, with £800 million flowed in UK itself. The move by the auto major supported an estimated sum of 190,000 new recruitments in UK.
Besides, the fresh investment made by the company helped it to kick off the operations at a £355 million engine plant near Wolverhampton and commence 24-hour production at its Halewood plant in Merseyside to remain parallel with the increasing demand for its Evoque. The company generated 1,100 jobs at its Castle Bromwich facility and investment made by Jaguar Land Rover also helped it to inaugurate a new assembly unit in India. Auto major also went into an alliance with the aim of introducing production plant in China, following its new investment.
In August 2012, the demand for Jaguar Land Rover vehicles helped the company fetch pre-tax profits of £333 million, 32 per cent, for the Q1 of fiscal 2013. During the first three months of current fiscal, the auto major sold over 85,000 units. A large number of sales were accounted by Range Rover as the yearly sales of all its models surged 20 per cent in fiscal 2012 (without including Range Rover Evoque). The large chunk of sales was dedicated in the auto markets of China and Russia.
The Global Brand Director of Land Rover, John Edwards, quoted, “Land Rover is a brand with momentum, we have ambitious plans for our future and we are broadening our footprint. Land Rover has seen 12 months of continuous sales increase, up in every region, up 40per cent in total. Our objective at Land Rover is to be the world’s SUV brand of choice for today and tomorrow, a car for all reasons, fit for every purpose.”
Reportedly, the official launch of new Range Rover will be rolled out from the company's end in a couple of months. The details of the model, including technical specification and pricing, will be announced this month ahead of Paris International Motor Show.
