Jaguar Land Rover to make an EV specifically for the Chinese market
Jaguar Land Rover has a partnership with Chinese automobile manufacturer Chery Automobile, called the Chery Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Company Ltd. that manufactures Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles in mainland China. And now JLR is planning to team up with Cherry to develop and manufacture an EV specifically for the Chinese market. The growing demand of EVs in the Chinese market, we believe, should work in favor of JLR.
Premium car manufacturers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz too are working on similar collaborations to develop China-spec EVs. Audi has already confirmed that it plans to bring five EVs specially for the Chinese market by 2022. On the other hand, popular EV manufacturer EV is already planning to setup a new plant in China.
In an interview to Bloomberg, Murray Dietsch, president of the partnership stated, "'Our expectation is the penetration of EV will continue to grow more than linearly". He further added, "'With the combination of the enhancement in SUV market and the expectation of higher penetration of battery-electric vehicles, you will see more battery-electric SUVs in the market in the future. For the next three to five years, obviously our focus is getting ourselves ready for the policy changes on new-energy vehicles. We've got a very detailed plan for us to be able to comply as you expect.'
It is said that the JLR Cherry partnership will produce EV variants of their regular models and launch it in China first considering the popularity and higher demands of EVs there. The British car manufacturer recently posted a growth of 23 percent in China last year. Additionally, the joint venture has already been making petrol E-Pace models for the Chinese market.
Source: Bloomberg