jaguar xj electric i
Michael Taylor6 Jul 2019
NEWS

Jaguar confirms pure-electric XJ

Next flagship Jaguar XJ to be a battery-powered and built in England

The script has been flipped on Jaguar’s flagship XJ limousine, with the British automaker confirming its next generation XJ will be exclusively built as a battery-electric car.

With its first BEV effort claiming both the World Car of the Year and European Car of the Year awards, Jaguar announced today that it would invest hundreds of millions of pounds to build the car at the Castle Bromwich plant.

Parent company Jaguar Land Rover confirmed the EV limousine, which has traditionally competed (poorly) with the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, the BMW 7-
Series and the Audi A8, will be on sale next year.

Announcing the new BEV on the same day it ceased production of the current internal-combustion XJ, JLR insisted it would build a “range of new electrified vehicles” at Castle Bromwich.

Its main Solihull plant, also in England, will specialize in plug-in hybrids and internal-combustion powertrains, including Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Discovery products.

“The future of mobility is electric and, as a visionary British company, we are committed to making our next generation of zero-emission vehicles in the UK,” Jaguar Land Rover CEO Ralph Speth said.

“We are co-locating our electric vehicle manufacture, Electronic Drive Units and battery assembly to create a powerhouse of electrification in the (English) Midlands.”

Moving the XJ to a BEV limousine seems a bold move for Jaguar, but there was little to lose for a large car with a small following. Jaguar has sold 1,037,178 XJ-badged cars since 1968, but it has barely registered 10,000 sales a year for the last two years.

It’s a bold move from a company that lost £3.66 billion in the 2018/19 financial year.

The same team that made the lauded I-Pace BEV, will develop the new BEV version off JLR’s Modular Longitudinal Architecture (MLA) hybrid platform, which is capable of hosting petrol, diesel, plug-in hybrid and pure BEV cars and SUVs.

That strategy won’t be unique in the car industry, though, as Mercedes-Benz already does that with the EQC’s architecture and BMW’s CLAR architecture will do the same thing as well, thanks to a sandwich floor layout.

JLR announced a partnership with BMW last month for the joint development of a new generation of electric motors, power electronics and transmissions, all without rare-earth minerals.

A team of JLR engineers has already been figuratively parachuted in to Munich, with the project using BMW’s fifth-generation eDrive technology (which will make its debut in this year’s iX3 BEV SUV) as its basis.

However there are still concerns about BEV take-up amongst the car-buying public, as recently and controversially pointed out by BMW’s director of development, Klaus Fröhlich.

“Convenience and affordability are the two key enablers to drive the uptake of electric vehicles to the levels that we all need,” Speth said, calling for governments and private operations to deliver a more comprehensive recharging network.

“Charging should be as easy as re-fuelling a conventional vehicle.
“Affordability will only be achieved if we make batteries here in the UK, close to vehicle production, to avoid the cost and safety risk of importing from abroad.

“The UK has the raw materials, scientific research in our universities and an existing supplier base to put the UK at the leading edge of mobility and job creation.”

The specter of Brexit has loomed large in JLR’s thinking, too, with only one of its plants outside the UK.

"We are making this investment because the ongoing Brexit uncertainty has left us with no choice, we had to act, for our employees and our business," Speth said.

"We are committed to the UK as our home and will fight to stay here but we need the right deal."

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Written byMichael Taylor
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