News : Jaguar announces £100m expansion of UK plant

jaguar-xe-production

Jaguar Land Rover has announced that the Jaguar XE is to be built at Castle Bromwich. Its production line will gradually transfer from Solihull as part of a £1bn-plus investment into the company’s West Midlands infrastructure.

This investment in new press lines, body shops and final assembly halls supports production of the three Jaguar models built on the company’s technically advanced aluminium architecture. The arrival of XE at Castle Bromwich continues the renaissance of the plant, which was slated for closure in 2008. The £100m investment to welcome the latest model takes the total invested in the site to more than £500m over the last two years, supporting continuous improvement in the production of XF, F-Type and XJ, also built at the plant.

In August, Jaguar sales stood at 85,726 for the year, an increase of 72% on 2015. This strong performance is driven primarily by F-Pace, the fastest selling Jaguar of all time, and XE, which made its US market debut in the summer.
Jaguar Land Rover’s Solihull plant will continue to operate three shifts, 24 hours a day, to keep up with global demand.

Nicolas Guibert, Castle Bromwich Operations Director, said: ‘2016 is a pivotal year for Castle Bromwich. The arrival of the XE sees us increase our model lines and volume. This plant has a rich heritage and is undergoing its most significant transformation in decades, with major infrastructure projects either complete or under way.’

Keith Adams

33 Comments

  1. So anyone wanting to buy a Solihull made saloon better be quick before it goes back to producing just SUVs!

    To me this is a reflection of how super successful the F-Pace is, and that XE sales aren’t perhaps as high as they hoped, as presumably it would have been easier to build the XE in Castle Bromwich in the first place, seeing that the very similar XF is made there.

    Either way, it’s amazing considering how JLR were close to closing one of the 2 midlands plants in 2008!

    • Yes – it does read to me that XE and probably XF production is being trimmed to cram them all into Castle Bromwich and clear space for the F Pace cash cow at Solihull – no different to what a lot of manufacturers are doing at the moment. Jags website is offering all sorts of approved used promotions on the XE at the moment. By the look of it a lot of these “used” cars are actually delivery mileage pre-registered examples, again not that different to what you’ll see on BMW, Merc and Audi websites.

      • The PCP is tempting though it was limited to 5k miles per annum, @ 12.40ppmile after. Another £600 a year to average 10k miles.

        At £50 a week currently doing 25mpg, if it could double that (ie. fuel bill in half) it would be almost worth it, 67mpg would reduce that further.

  2. Good to read of continued investment at JLR, despite the scare stories surrounding the UK Motor industry following the EU Referendum result. Long may it continue

  3. Good luck, they’ll need it, what with their entire landrover range now made up of chavwagons.
    The Jaguar cars are really nice looking other than that SUV “thing” that really should be taken behind the woodshed..
    There honestly seems to be some sort of hereditary disease going on here, companies buy part of BL or Rover or MG introduce a new model that does well but slowly and insidious, Allegro Syndrome or Mad Manager Disease catches up with them and they either turn a successful product into a hideous parody, or some director commits commercial suicide.. “here’s our lovely new car, possibly the one retro pastiche to rule them all, and by the way we’re practically broke/owned by Radagast the Bewildered/making head gaskets for Eastern European loo paper…”
    Still I hope they survive, there’s always a first time..

  4. Phew, that was close. There I was thinking that an investment of £100m, as part of a £1bn investment, was good news. Trust Jemma to put me straight. Can’t I see that people shouldn’t want to buy these cars?

    Well actually, I gave up trying to dictate people’s tastes years ago. JLR are in business to make cars that people want to buy – if I don’t like them, let’s face it, I’m not the target customer, so it hardly matters.

    I guess I would see a lot of Jags around my neck of the woods, as I live near the Midlands plants. But the litmus test is how many I see heading away from Solihull, West Brom, or Gaydon in the mornings; or towards them in the evenings (lots).

  5. When several owners of the current Discovery flat out state the new one is several steps back, doesn’t retain needed or useful features; or they’re possibly considering other options, I don’t think I’m wrong in wondering if JLR has had a case of foot shooting syndrome.
    If I look at how many disco’s I see on the roads, of all versions, and compare that with the number of evoques.. It’s no contest. If I’ve seen 3 evoques in total since they’ve come out that’s as many, I saw that many disco’s today, 2 series 2 and one of the most recent ones.. Granted Essex is not Chelsea tractor central but that’s not good odds if you are going to offend and put off repeat buyers of your most popular model.. It’s verging on pointy haired boss territory.
    Then you spend god’s alone know how much on developing a similar vehicle for your other brand, which will take sales, more likely, from your own models, rather than the competition.
    Best of all you put down, after decades, your most capable 4×4 off road vehicle, for some really millennial reasons,(and that term isn’t a compliment by the way), after all it can’t be that hard to find a modern emissions capable engine that will fit in a space the size of a small shed, after decades of sales, then to top off the witches brew of gormlessness, you take the one really close replacement and make it into a gaudy ugly soccer-mom-mobile for the sort of person who thinks a transfer case is something you use to carry your stick on tattoos…
    Add the fact that people see a vehicle based on a rehash of a rehash of a Fiat Punto as a vehicle that they would willingly take off road, and a competitor to JLR products… Be afraid, be very very afraid. An off road vehicle from a company whose products have a habit of unscrewing their steering column and need a suspension rebuild after hitting a high kerb.. Should not be a competitor to Landrover, but it is..

    • Who the hell do you think you are? What sort of car does a miserable, bitter, nasty, probably bearded idiot who thinks anybody who wants a car that he doesn’t is some sort of deviant drive I wonder? Fortunately there seems to be plenty of people who don’t fit Jemmas psychological profile (probably around 99.999% of the population) that can keep JLR’s – and BMW’s, Audis and Mercs production lines rolling for many years to come.

      • Here’s a list

        Series 1 Renault 25
        XR2 & Metro GTA (driving instructors cars)
        Series 2 Renault 25
        Series 1 & 2 Safrane
        Humber Sceptre 1
        Renault “super” 5 Campus
        Humber Sceptre 1 (again)
        Humber Sceptre 2
        Humber Super Snipe (in a soggy Haverfordwest, once was more than enough, in both respects)
        BMW 3 series (once, brands hatch).
        Rover SD1 II 2300SE
        Safrane again
        Prius test drive (which was going on fine until idiot boy salesdrone hit the sport mode button without any warning and almost launched us over a roundabout)
        Skoda Favorit estate (surprisingly un-crap, although power steering would have been nice)

        currently, not really through choice but surprisingly nice to drive (if not work on), but raise rear tyre pressure by 4 or so psi.

        Hyundai Accent LCII.

        I have had the joys of driving a fairly recent Landrover defender, a 110, and while on the road it’s frankly scary (a two tonne skateboard on black ice), off road it’s a completely different matter, I can see why expedition people love them, so I can’t see why it was dumped, emissions is not a reason – it sounds more like an excuse.
        Part of the reason I consider vehicles like the 500/Bini/new beetle and the like hateful is they’re the exact polar opposite of what they’re referring to, they’re not a tribute, they’re not even a bad pastiche. They’re generally worse cars as a result and people still fall for the marketing ploy (I never thought I would be championing the Fiat Panda.. Over anything (even another fix-it-again-tony). It even looks nice.
        And let’s be scrupulously fair to the Evoque – when you hire an ex spice girl as a consultant… What could possibly go wrong?

        But of course the next 8 years will be great, Donnie Dickwit & Theresa May, Brexit, Global warming and Hollyoaks – what’s not to like?

        To paraphrase “Democracy, a strange game, the only winning move is not to play.. ”

        Oh, if you’ve got kindle (I’m betting an iPhone btw), have a read of Correlli Barnett’s Audit of War – you might learn something about WHY we’ve ended up hiring Spice Girls as product consultants.

        • I see what you are saying about the retro cars.
          And you have a point.
          But I do confess to loving the New Fiat 500.
          I think they are cool,
          Granted the panda is a great car too.
          Personally the only retro cars that worked IMHO are the 500 and the Ford GT
          and the Mini without the off roaders and the 500 without the 500X etc.

          The Panda has a good record for reliability also. And the twinair sounds like a sweet engine.
          The New Renault Twingo been rear engined is a good looking new car.
          And for not been a retro car is all the better for it.
          And I heard one of those first generation Citroen C1’s at the lights once.
          The engine had a nice throaty roar to it.. seemed like a fun car.

    • Evoques are ten-a-penny in the North Cambs\South Lincs area.
      Our car park in Peterborough is awash with them.
      Seeing a lot more Disco Sports now as well.

      • Agreed. South Lincs is crawling with them. Went to Les Comes for LandRover party 2 years ago and off there for LR Party 10 in a couple of weeks. Saw plenty of Evoques being driven off road there.Just that nobody ever does here.

    • I’ve got better legs, although my maternal grandparents were from London – grandad was involved in the (real) battle of cable street (on the labour side) and would have been a thorn in Thatcher’s side if he wasn’t retired and living in Basingstoke.
      Although I always wondered, how did a lifelong communist get a civil service job?

  6. Why was this not mentions on the main BBC news @ 6.00. All I saw were pictures of Hilary Clinton wobbling around. Possibly the average Brit is not interested in ‘good news’.

  7. This is great to hear but not surprising as there seem to be lots of F Paces going down the M5 for export.

    Long may JLR continue to make great cars that people want to buy.

  8. What does 100 million get these days?
    Seem to remember in 1994 prices; Ford dropped 6 BILLION with a B into the first Mondeo.
    When I see figures like this 100 million.
    sure it’s a nice Lottery win but for car manufacturer?
    It’s petty cash.
    Probably cost 100 million to dampen the ashtray.
    or for Andrex in the Toilet stall instead of the NHS grade sandpaper.
    at least that’ll make the workers whistle whilst they work.
    Money well spent, then.

  9. £100m is in modern day terms, and indeed modern day JLR terms, not a large sum, their recent annual report mentioned they would invest £3.75bn in 2016/17!!!

    http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/500m-jaguar-land-rover-expansion-11413837
    http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/revealed-jaguar-land-rovers-500m-10707624

    I’d never seen this story before (it’s from earlier this year) but it suggests that JLR have massive expansion plans for Coventry including a possible new assembly line!

  10. Although the Evoke may not be to all tastes it has sold 1/2 million in 5 years. I am surprised that Jemma has only seen 5 ever.
    My first car was a 1965 Fiat 500D ELK516C and as a company car about 7 years ago I had a new 500 with ten excellent diesel. It was an dis a great car and although back to front enginewise it is a good modern take on its predecessor. Times have changed and it is indeed a pastiche but I do like bright colours and light airy interiors rather than the pimp style that many go for.
    Recently we sold our wonderful MINI Cooper S JCW convertible. Same stylist as the new 500 and a great fun car. I agree that it is not true to the Mini but that does not make it a bad car. I too like the Panda and it one of the few interesting small cars out there.
    The trend I dislike is that to use leather in cars. Personally I disagree with it ethically and there are better synthetic fabrics out there. We don’t need to be the Flintstones in our high tech cars. For that reason and that they do not make an estate XE or new XF, I will not be looking at a JLR product when my Mercedes C300 estate (Artico fake leather interior) lease is finished. The only JLR available to me is the bottom of the range XE saloon.

    • It’s definitely a shortfall, not producing an estate. I know that manufacturer’s like to string out product launches over a period of time, just to keep the publicity going, but this must them lose customers at upgrade time.
      With residuals being do vital to the all important PCP figures, I can see why cloth disappeared as an option for financial reasons (a used Jag, with cloth seats, is a real problem to sell). However, are Mercedes the only ones who now sell cars with imitation leather / vinyl? Is this durable stuff basically intended for their worldwide taxi market? If leather isn’t acceptable you for ethical reasons (which I respect), that must leave you with a very limited choice, which must be a pain.

      • It seems Jaguar aren’t going to produce an XE or XF estate.

        You do see big estates around, but then you also see a lot more SUVs

      • The Artico on my C300 is very convincing and not like the Taxi MBtex of old. This is not on the poverty spec version. In this day and age it is surprising that we do not have high tech fabrics in cars in the same way that trainers and clothes do.
        BMW have a cloth option on the 3 series and the AMG package on the C and E class uses alcantara.

    • I would suggest that there is leather and then there is leather.

      I had cause last week to have use of the Great Escape Cars Bentley 8 for the day last week.

      The Connolly leather seats were fantastic…

  11. Indian spec XEs and XFs are available with cloth across the range. Shame that this is not offered in the UK since they are currently made here.

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