Eighteen years after it produced its last in-house engine, Jaguar Land Rover opened its first engine manufacturing plant, under Tata ownership, on Thursday. The £500-million project will help increase the automaker’s competitiveness, giving it more flexibility to respond to market needs and future technologies.
The new engine manufacturing centre, near the central English city of Wolverhampton, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday at a high-profile event attended by Ratan Tata and the Queen’s husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, politicians and the plant’s 300 current employees.
“It’s a very significant step in our global growth,” said Mike Wright, Executive Director at JLR, in a round-table discussion ahead of the launch. Producing the light-weight efficient engines presents the company with the opportunity to attract a whole new series of customers. “For the first time we have strategic control of the design and engineering and manufacture of engines. And for any automotive player, that is a very important strategic step.”
“The engine is at the heart of every car, and manufacturing engines in-house will help us meet our very ambitious cycle plan commitments,” said Wolfgang Stadler, Manufacturing Director, during a presentation at the launch. “We are now ready to deliver.”
JLR first announced plans to build the 100,000-sq metre plant (the size of 14 football pitches) in 2011, with construction beginning the following year. It includes an engine testing facility, manufacturing and separate assembly halls for diesel and petrol engines.
Jaguar Land Rover stopped making engines in April 1996, though it has always maintained control of the design process.
The first engine to be made at the new factory will be the low-emission 2-litre, four-cylinder ‘Ingenium’ diesel engine used in the Jaguar XE, the company’s mid-sized executive “attainable” car, which it hopes will spur sales growth across the world.
JLR has not made its sales projections public. Jaguar sold 76,669 vehicles in 2013, while Land Rover sold 348,338. The XE is set to hit India in 2016 at the Delhi Auto show.
“Today is just a very important step, in terms of operating and manufacturing our engines, going into the biggest sector of the market,” said Wright.
“Clearly this allows us to penetrate a price band in the market that we have hitherto been unable to penetrate. So, in that sense, it’s very significant.”