Leaked transcripts of calls between Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and its investors have confirmed a full pure-electric Range Rover is finally on its way, with a reveal set down for late this year.
The much-rumoured Range Rover EV will share plenty with the next-generation Jaguar XJ that will now be revealed in October, a month ahead of the inaugural all-electric Rangie, according to
, which has seen the leaked documents.This schedule is later than the August and September debuts originally planned for the Jaguar and Land Rover EV respectively.
Set to be based on JLR's all-new MLA architecture, the Range Rover EV is tipped to be an even sportier take on the current Velar, with a lower more streamlined profile, although size-wise it should be similar in length.
As well as mechanically similar, the new member of the Range Rover family will be built at Jaguar's Castle Bromwich plant along the same production line as the Jaguar XJ.
No other details were revealed to the JLR stakeholders, other than to say a new product dubbed 'MLA MID' has been delayed by the global pandemic.
On the call, JLR's chief financial offer Adrian Mardell reportedly revealed that work on the next-generation full-size Range Rover and Range Rover Sport replacements had not been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and were still on track, although the senior exec confirmed the car-maker would cut it future investment in new models by £3 billion ($A5.4bn) – £1bn ($A1.8bn) more than before.
According to the report, Mardell said this would be achieved by cutting the number of derivatives on future models.
Further restructuring and the switch to a single platform would also help the car-maker "thrive" on volumes of slightly less than 500,000 units per year.
Before the pandemic struck, JLR was selling around 550,000 cars annually – a sales figure Mardell claimed the car-maker could return to, pushing on to 600,000 units which would see JLR placed in a "highly profitable"".
In the future, the JLR's CFO revealed the car-maker had ambitions to increase annual Defender sales to hit 100,000.
Finally, Mardell told investors that JLR warranty costs fell by a sizeable £107 million ($A190m) year-on-year, revealing a breakthrough in reliability and quality levels.