As the automobile industry doubles down on electric vehicles, Tata Group-owned luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is on track to transform itself into a fully electric company, according to Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) Chairman N Chandrasekaran.
“The transformation of Jaguar into an all‑electric luxury brand is on track with the first new vehicle to be revealed in 2024 and customer deliveries starting in 2025. It will also start taking pre‑orders for the maiden pure electric Range Rover later this year,” Chandrasekaran said while addressing shareholders in the company’s annual report for 2022-23.
Recalling the past year, he noted that the company faced a severe shortage of semiconductors, especially in the first half. However, as the situation eased in the second half, JLR witnessed a consistent increase in its production and sales volumes.
“It ended this year in a stronger position with a portfolio of attractive products, a healthy bank of customer orders touching nearly 200,000 units, low break evens, and with a clear strategy to ‘Reimagine’ its renowned British brands for global clients,” he added.
The maker of SUVs such as Range Rover, Defender, and Discovery under the Land Rover brand and Jaguar luxury cars, is also eyeing clocking revenues of more than 28 billion pounds in FY24. Under its ‘Reimagine’ strategy, the company targets to achieve revenues of over 30 billion pounds by 2026.
During FY 2022-23 with JLR reported wholesales of 3,21,362 units, up 9 percent year-on-year. Meanwhile, the company’s revenues stood at 22.8 billion pounds during the year under review, up 24.5 percent from FY 2021-22.
JLR’s EBIT margin stood at 2.4 percent and PBT of 97 million pounds last year, remarkably better than the 455 million pounds loss before tax recorded in the previous year. The business also delivered a free cash flow of 521 million pounds.
According to the company’s Annual report for 2023, Halewood plant will become JLR’s first all-electric production facility, and next-generation electrified modular architecture (EMA) will now be pure electric only.
The company also plans to increase its investment spending to about 3 billion pounds in the current fiscal year, but free cash flow is expected to be above 2 billion pounds and net debt is expected to reduce to below 1 billion pounds by FY 2023-24.