Jaguar Land Rover canceled a planned Land Rover full-electric SUV and scaled back its program of new vehicles on the flexible Modular Longitudinal Architecture (MLA) platform because they would not meet the automaker’s emissions and technology requirements, executives said.
Chief Financial Officer Adrian Mardell told analysts on an investor call that JLR has ended development of vehicles on the so-called MLA-mid platform, including a full-electric Jaguar XJ sedan and a full-electric Land Rover.
The MLA platform will be now be used solely by large Land Rover SUVs, including the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport.
The electric Land Rover was likely to have been the lower-riding "Road Rover" code-named L392, which has been reported in the automotive press but never officially announced. The Jaguar J-Pace electric SUV, also never officially revealed, is likely to be another casualty.
JLR will write off 1 billion pounds ($1.4 billion) of investment related to those products as part of the company’s "Reimagine" strategy, Mardell told financial analysts on the investor call on Friday.
"There are costs involved, including the cancelation of the MLA-mid program, the XJ replacement and the Land Rover BEV," Mardell said. The investment due to be written off had largely been made in 2019.
Jaguar Land Rover had intended for the MLA platform, which supports full-electric, plug-in hybrid and internal combustion engine drivetrains, to underpin nearly all its models by 2025, according to a presentation the company showed to investors in 2018.
The UK automaker plans to make the Jaguar brand all-electric starting in 2025, dropping combustion engines as the brand's sedans and crossovers reach the end of their life cycles. Land Rover will get its first battery-powered vehicle in 2024 but will not be electric-only in the near term.
Smaller Land Rovers including the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery Sport will now use a new platform from 2025 called Electrical Modular Architecture that is described as "BEV native" and can incorporate combustion engines in plug-in hybrid or hybrid format.