The plans of Jaguar Land Rover – JLR for short – are likely to make many a business professor’s hair stand on end. In the future, the Land Rover brand as the mother of JLR’s off-road models will only appear as an umbrella brand in the background. After the top model Range Rover has effectively been its own brand for years, the Indian British are now going all out.
Land Rover itself as a traditional label in the brand name should be forgotten, because the other two model families Discovery and Defender should also become equal brands alongside Range Rover. The traditional approach that the individual products with their corresponding qualities should first strengthen the product and primarily the overarching brand is forgotten.
Strictly speaking, neither Land Rover nor Jaguar Land Rover is the actual umbrella brand, because the Indian car company Tata Motors ranks above JLR and above that is the global Tata Group. JLR achieved record global sales of 24.7 billion euros in the first nine months of the 2023/24 financial year – an increase of 35 percent compared to the previous year.
This should hardly affect British-inclined car customers in their everyday lives, because a lot of things will remain the same for the time being. At least with the two well-known models Land Rover Defender and Range Rover. The Defender was the conglomerate’s most successful model in 2023, not only in Germany, even if it has nothing more in common with the rustic off-road squared timber of yesteryear than the name.
With its design and qualities on and off paved slopes, it has long since taken on the role of the cool 4×4 all-purpose weapon. Interesting for all those who don’t want a soft SUV with front-wheel drive and a van image, but rather one that at least could – if they only wanted to. After the numerous postponements, the long-overdue version of the electric Range Rover is scheduled to come onto the market this year and complement the well-known drive portfolio of diesel, gasoline and plug-in hybrids. Of the six new electric models from Land Rover/Range Rover that were once planned by 2030, depending on market developments, only four may remain. Depending on how global demand for plug-in mobiles develops.
However, there is even more going on at Jaguar – which some have already declared dead after years of lack of content. After the Jaguar
Although electric sales are currently stalling almost worldwide, Jaguar will become a purely electric brand from mid-2025. The first of three new models will be a four-door Gran Turismo that could compete against an Audi Etron GT or a Porsche Taycan – with more space in the rear. The as yet unnamed electric GT is based on the newly developed JEA platform and will be manufactured in Solihull. With higher performance than any previous Jaguar, an electric range of up to 700 kilometers and prices over 150,000 euros, the new Jaguar will be based on the innovative Jaguar Electric Architecture.
However, in the future, Jaguar and Land/Range Rover will no longer share platforms. The Range Rover Electric on the MLA (Modular Longitudinal Architecture) platform also comes from Solihull, while the vehicles on the fully electric EMA midsize SUV platform are manufactured in Halewood. The engine factory in Wolverhampton is being converted in parallel to the so-called Electric Propulsion Manufacturing Center. To make all this possible, Tata plans to invest more than 18 billion euros in manufacturing, vehicle development and digital technologies over the next five years. JLR also wants to be emission-free by 2039.