JLR, makers of modern luxury vehicles, on Thrusday 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 5th 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.

 

Bergmeier said: “I am thrilled to announce that our fantastic state-of-the-art plant in Nitra will be producing electric vehicles this decade as part of our electrification strategy. This is a vote of confidence in the plant’s 5,000 skilled and dedicated people and demonstrates the key role Nitra plays in our current successful performance. I also want to thank our suppliers have followed us to collocate at Nitra and supported our increases in production.”

 

JLR Nitra Operations Director Guillermo Mancholas said: “Today is a real milestone for our plant, which has gone from strength to strength since the lines started work five years ago. We took changes, such adding the Defender 130 and moving from two to three shifts increasing production from 2,000 to 3,000 cars a week, in our stride. The news that we will be delivering electric vehicle production is confirmation of our key role in the Reimagine Strategy.”

 

JLR invested €1.3 billion 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, Defender is generating 10 times the revenue that the Classic Defender was in 2015.

 

Looking forward, JLR is investing £15 billion over five years to transform its vehicles to electric and become a 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.

 

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 this week opened a new £250 million Future Energy Lab in Whitley, Coventry, UK, to develop Electric Drive Units for the company in house. - TradeArabia News Service