JLR has confirmed that its state-of-the-art plant in Nitra, Slovakia, will produce electric vehicles as part of the company’s Reimagine Strategy that will see nine new electric vehicles launched by 2030.
Announcing the news on the Slovakian plant’s fifth anniversary, Executive Director of Industrial Operations Barbara Bergmeier hailed the incredible success of the plant and its people, which have produced over 365,000 Defender and Discovery vehicles to date, since production commenced in October 2018.
JLR invested €1.3bn to launch Nitra, a
highly digitised and automated plant that was the first in Europe to
use Kuka’s Pulse carrier system - 30% faster transfer times than
conventional systems. Since then, the luxury car maker has invested a
further €60m in new technology, land, buildings and software.
Built
exclusively at Nitra, the new Defender has been a particular financial
success story for the company. As JLR’s bestselling model for last two
financial years, the Defender is generating ten times the revenue that
the Classic Defender was in 2015.
Looking forward, JLR is
investing £15bn over five years to transform its vehicles to electric
and become carbon net zero by 2039. This includes electrifying its
luxury Range Rover, Defender, Jaguar and Discovery brands, and launching
nine pure electric models by 2030.
JLR is rapidly transforming its
industrial footprint to prepare for electrification, and the
electrification of Nitra represents the last piece in that jigsaw.
Halewood
will become JLR’s first all-electric production facility, Solihull will
produce electric Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Jaguar models, the
Engine Manufacturing Centre in Wolverhampton will build Electric Drive
Units (EDUs) and Castle Bromwich will be repurposed to build body panels
for EVs. Meanwhile JLR has last week opened a new £250m Future Energy
Lab in Whitley, Coventry, UK, to develop Electric Drive Units for the
company in house.
Further details on the electric models to be built at Nitra will be confirmed at a later date.
