Tata Motors, owner of Jaguar Land Rover has announced recently that they will be moving Land Rover operations to China within two years. This is in line with JLR’s plans to close one of its three factories in the UK later this decade.
CEO Carl Peter-Forster confirmed that they would start off with lower end Land Rover models from completely knocked down kits, and assures what seems to be the British workforce, that it will not threaten jobs as it drive sales of the brand’s cars.
“We believe there are ample opportunities for the business both in India and the UK to grow,” Forster said. Tata who also produce the ultra cheap car Nano, said that they still are talking to interested partners to avoid steep taxes on imported vehicles.
Land Rover assembles a small number of its Defender large utility vehicles in South-East Asia and South Africa. JLR also plan to begin small volume complete knock down (CKD) production of Land Rovers in India next year.
CKD units are the way some auto manufactures assemble cars in countries where labour is cheap. This is where a whole kit is imported into a country very much like China and then assembled there to circumvent taxes.
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Why not India, the home base of Tata.
India & China have always had a tense relationship since the border wars, so it is surprising to hear of this development.
Unless the decision has been made much earlier (before the Tata buy over) & the ground work in China has already proceeded.
Why also not here, in Malaysia?
As someone who worked closely with a European brand in Malaysia I know just how eager we were to improve our operations. Policies and the NAP put a stop to all that.
That is the result of our AP, and Proton policies that attracts NO foreign car manufacturers to move their assemble plant to Malaysia. Imagine how many jobs can be created when these manufacturers moved here, instead of Thailand, Indonesia and China, and the whole eco-environment (those mamak shop, food store around this factories can be created).
What to do…..
Go China !!!
smart… :-)
Oh yeah, this is the best news I’ve heard from Land Rover since the awful news a few years back.
I really thought Land Rover will be dead when I heard the news that they will be own by the crappiest company name TATA.
James,
Tata is not a crappy company. You do not have any company in Malaysia that you can compare with the spectrum of companies owned by Tata. Infact after Tata took over the sales of JLR has been increasing. The XF and XJ are both phenomenonal success stories.
Before dissing any company go and check out their history.
goodbye quality
Next will be the cheapest 4WD in the world, NoNo!
we all gonna die…
If you think Tata will dillute Land Rover brand name you must be living in fools paradise.
please develop more lower end models (and assemble them here plz) so that i can finally own a land rover :)
Paul,
Land rover is going to assemble them just for the Chinese market and similarly LR plans to assemble locally in India for the Indian market.
The factory closing of the Solihull plant is due to rationalizing production in one place instead of two.
Tata has green lighted four new models including the new F type and a all new Xtype all designed by Ian Callum.