Jaguar Land Rover to outline EV push during investor day

Jaguar Land Rover will disclose its future electrification plans during an investor day at the end of the month.

JLR needs to inject momentum into its Jaguar brand and accelerate its push into electric cars as governments introduce tougher measures to reduce climate-changing CO2 emissions. Rumors have circulated in the motoring press that the automaker could make the Jaguar brand all-electric.

The company has struggled financially in recent years as its vehicles sales fell in the key Chinese market at a time when it has also had to invest heavily to keep up with bigger rivals such as BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz in the shift to electrification.

To preserve cash during the COVID-19 crisis, JLR delayed plans to launch a Jaguar XJ full-electric sedan, the Jaguar J-Pace, and a Range Rover EV, according to press reports. JLR's only full-electric car is the Jaguar I-Pace crossover launched in 2018.

Since former Renault No. 2 Thierry Bollore, joined as CEO in September JLR has communicated almost nothing about its future plans.

When questioned about JLR's future electrification plans, Chief Financial Officer Adrian Mardell told analysts to expect an update during the investor day on Feb. 26. "Be excited. I'm simply going to say that we have a super investor day set up," Mardell told investors on an earnings call on Jan. 28.

The company will give a full outline of "how we are thinking, how we are shaping out and what you should expect," Mardell added.

JLR's pretax profit was 439 million pounds ($603 million) in its latest quarter ending Dec. 31, 121 million pounds higher than the same quarter a year ago, despite a 9 percent drop in global vehicle sales.

The quarterly results were helped by the automaker's Project Charge+ turnaround program, launched after the company had a 3.66 billion-pound loss in its 2018/19 financial year.

Land Rover's new Defender also gave JLR a boost during the quarter. The new generation of the iconic off-roader overtook the Range Rover and Velar to become Land Rover's fourth-best selling model over the quarter, JLR figures showed.

Jaguar sales accounted for just 16 percent of the company's 128,469 total for the quarter, leaving questions about the wisdom of keeping the storied but troubled marque.

JLR's new chief creative officer, Gerry McGovern, has said he wants to modernize the design of Jaguar cars and make the sports-car brand "wonderful again."

"I'm savoring the thought of helping my Jaguar colleagues to bring Jaguar back to the position it deserves. It's a unique brand with incredible pedigree and a lot of potential," McGovern told Automotive News Europe in an interview.

Land Rover is better placed than Jaguar thanks to continuing strong sales of its profitable Range Rover Sport large SUV, which last quarter came close to beating the best-selling Range Rover Evoque and related Land Rover Discovery Sport at 18,492 sales. Land Rover will this year unveil the redesigned Range Rover.

But the SUV brand is suffering cannibalization of its own range as it expands its lineup. "There has been some cross shopping between Discovery [large SUV] and Defender over the first 12 months," Mardell said on the January investor call.

The Discovery, which is built in the plant in Nitra, Slovakia, along with the Defender, accounted for just 4,831 sales in the last quarter, down 51 percent on the same quarter in 2019, compared with a volume of 16,286 for the Defender.