The boss of Jaguar Land Rover has called on ministers to increase spending on policing to prevent car thefts rather than making tax cuts, after the Range Rover maker was hit by a wave of thefts of its luxury vehicles.

Adrian Mardell, the British carmaker’s chief executive, said: “I would rather funds be put towards this rather than tax cuts next year. This is important to so many people. It goes to the fabric of the society we’re in. We’ve got to sort this out.”

Insurance premiums for JLR’s luxury vehicles have soared, prompting the company to relaunch its own insurance cover last October. Some insurers have refused to cover Range Rovers.

The company, which is owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata, is spending more than £10m updating £450,000 older vehicles with new security software, and has installed it on 80,000 so far. “The theft rates of those enhanced vehicles are as low as the new vehicles,” Mardell said. “Speed of delivery, that is a problem. Many of these customers we don’t know because they’re second and third sales.”

Of the 12,800 vehicles of the latest Range Rover sold since its launch two years ago, only 11 have been stolen.

“We’ve got to make it more difficult for gangs and people to operate,” Mardell said. “We’re partly funding police security at the ports because there isn’t enough. The containers are not being checked, and they get out of the country.”

The comments came as the firm reported its highest quarterly profit since 2017 and said its new electric Range Rover had generated strong interest, as it pushes ahead with upgrades to its UK factories for electrical vehicle production.

JLR made a profit before tax and exceptional items of £627m in its third quarter, the three months to 31 December, up from £235m a year earlier. Sales rose to £7.4bn from £6bn, as wholesale revenues of its Range Rover – vehicles sold through dealerships – hit a quarterly record. JLR sold 109,140 cars directly to customers.

JLR said more than 16,000 people had signed up to the waiting list for pre-orders of the Range Rover Electric in the first six weeks, its new flagship vehicle that will be launched within the next 12 months. It is seen as a key step towards the company’s electric future as it tries to catch up with rivals.

Mardell said: “These are additional customers, not substitution customers. A couple of weeks ago, the wait list was about 10,000. So it’s grown a lot in January, which signals to me it’s going to increase at a steady pace over the next few months.”

In December, JLR began road-testing prototypes of the vehicle, its first foray into building electric cars in the UK. Electric medium-sized sports utility vehicle prototypes and new all-electric Jaguar prototypes are also being built in the Midlands.

JLR said it was installing a £60m battery electric vehicle underbody line at Solihull, near Birmingham, a new body shop in Halewood, Merseyside, for electric models near completion, and production lines to manufacture electric drive units at Wolverhampton in the West Midlands.

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The carmaker has been relatively cautious about embracing electric vehicles, but last April announced a £15bn investment plan to upgrade its factories and launch electric versions of its models, starting with the Range Rover.

It is being manufactured at JLR’s factory in Solihull using many of the same tools as the existing Range Rovers, which are hybrids that combine smaller electric batteries with a petrol engine. The firm has not announced prices yet. The diesel hybrid Range Rover is priced from £103,720.

Tata plans to invest £4bn in opening an electric car battery gigafactory in Britain, creating 4,000 jobs. The facility in Somerset is due to begin production in 2026. Construction on the site has just started.

At its Castle Bromwich site, JLR will expand stamping facilities that prepare pressed body metalwork to play a key role in the production of the next-generation electric vehicles.