Jaguar assembly lines to go dormant ahead of EV shift

The end of Jaguar's internal combustion engine age is just weeks away.

The British automaker is planning to end production of its remaining gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles starting in June, Joe Eberhardt, JLR's North American CEO, told Road & Track magazine.

But the first of a new generation of high-performance Jaguar full-electric vehicles is not expected to land until sometime in 2025. So JLR is planning a tightly managed transition from the current lineup to the new one that aims to keep Jaguar dealers from running out of new vehicles.

"The majority of our products cease production in June, but they will be on sale for a much longer time," Eberhardt told Road & Track. "We will have a production schedule that enables us to have a continuous supply of vehicles until the new cars come. … We're trying to time it so we have enough volume to take us through to the launch of the new product and have a clean handover."

Final customer orders for the F-Type sports car are being built now. Jaguar's vehicles scheduled for production through June are the F-Pace midsize crossover, the E-Pace compact crossover and the XF sedan. The electric I-Pace, built under contract in Austria by Magna Steyr, is expected to end production last, probably sometime early next year.

JLR spokesperson Stuart Schorr said the company's U.K. Castle Bromwich plant, where the F-Type, XF and the smaller XE sedan are built, will begin the transition to producing body panels for all of the automaker's models after vehicle production ends.

The first of the new-generation electric Jaguars is a four-door fastback called the GT that will likely have a starting price around £100,000 (about $127,000). It will be equipped with all-wheel drive and offer a 0 to 60 mph acceleration time of under four seconds.

JLR has said the GT will be capable of fast charging and have a range of up to 700 km (434 miles). The GT is the first variant to be built on an exclusive Jaguar EV platform called the JEA. Two other JEA-based crossovers are expected to join the GT after the new car debuts.

JLR CEO Adrian Mardell, speaking to reporters last month on the automaker's earnings call, said the rollout plan for Jaguar's lineup looks like this: The GT will debut late this year with sales starting in 2025. Late next year, the second new Jaguar will arrive, followed by the third model in 2026.

JLR officials would not say how many combustion vehicles the company will stockpile and then funnel to dealers starting late this summer, nor would they comment on how the plan would be executed.