Jaguar Land Rover to shift production of Discovery to new plant in Slovakia

ABU DHABI: Like all the major premium automakers, who are in a quest of pushing production volume further, Jaguar Land Rover too has invested heavily in a new manufacturing plant in Slovakia. This, of course, could be traced when the company mentioned expanding its global presence back in 2015.

Jaguar Land Rover has invested a whopping 1.5 billion dollars in this new production facility which is slated to have an annual production capacity of around 300,000 units. However, this new production plant will see a major turnaround in the company’s long-term production strategy in European countries.

The production of the Discovery will be shifted to this new Slovakia plant, as mentioned by the company's top officials. But this will bring about a significant change in its presence in the Britain. As a result of this shift, 1,000 jobs will be on the cut. However, the company did not fail to mention that despite being a tough call, it was an important part of its future global strategy.

Speaking of the automobile market in Britain, which is the second largest in Europe, the company has suffered a downfall as diesel cars failed to succeed owing to the regulations and higher taxes. Moreover, as a whole, the country faced 6% dip in the automobile demand last year due to the Brexit issue.

Back in 2017, the Tata-owned JLR had announced that in future it will electrifying its entire lineup. The company will be introducing a vast portfolio of cars which would include only electric, plug-in, and mild hybrids. The production in the new JLR Slovakia plant will commence later this year.

Currently, Jaguar Land Rover has three production plants in the United Kingdom, an assembling facility in India, a production plant in Brazil and it also manufactures cars in China. Of course, the addition of Slovakia to the list will help the company attain great volume of production at a brisk pace.