Jaguar Land Rover and BMW are set to further expand their technical collaboration, with the British automaker group looking to adopt the German marque’s new platform for its own compact crossover models, Autocar reports. the two automakers initially announced a collaboration for the development of EV drive units, and followed up with another for the co-development of petrol, diesel and hybrid powertrains.
The new FAAR transverse driveline layout platform which underpins the latest F40 BMW 1 Series could serve as that basis, the two expected new models being a small SUV and a coupe crossover of a similar size. The duo are likely to be entry level models bearing the ‘Pace’ name in the same convention as the I-Pace, F-Pace and E-Pace to signify the SUV family connection, the report said.
The inter-brand platform sharing exercise could also see the next-generation Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery Sport make use of the same architecture that will underpin the next-generation BMW X1 and the next MINI Countryman. This could also open the door to another entry-level Land Rover model, which could bring back the Freelander nameplate.
Further afield within the JLR group, the second-generation Range Rover Evoque and the facelifted Land Rover Discovery Sport on a new platform was also introduced earlier this year. The aforementioned small coupe crossover could be an adaptation of the BMW X2, which Autocar thinks could be Jaguar’s more upmarket take on the compact SUV segment to reach the female buyers’ market.
Jaguar Land Rover charted a loss of £395 million (RM2.001 billion) due to a decline in sales for the last quarter, though the company is hoping that investment in the new MLA architecture will revive sales and turn its fortunes around. The sharing of BMW’s FAAR platform is arguably even more important, as it fills the need for a new compact, electrified drive-capable platform for 2025 and beyond, said Autocar.
This move would also add Jaguar Land Rover’s current volume of 250,000 units to BMW’s volume of 850,000 units for front-wheel-drive vehicles, and serve to integrate FAAR platform model production at BMW’s plant in Oxford with JLR’s plant in Halewood, along with engine and battery production in Hams Hall and electric drive motor production in Wolverhampton, it said.
The next-generation of the Discovery Sport and the Evoque are slated to arrive around 2025 and the late 2020s respectively, and costs for these are likely to be more manageable for JLR with the co-development of powertrains and sharing of BMW’s FWD platform.
GALLERY: Jaguar E-Pace, Bangkok 2018
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So Jaguar Land Rover would be rebadging BMW?
Yup. Bashers would be claiming JLR rebadge BMW like Toyota rebadge BMW. All manufacturers rebadge except Proton. Only Proton is original.
Bashers bashed Proton for rebadging the X70 as if it’s the end of the world. Now, they ate their own words when even other carmakers are rebadging.
Bashers all got the jaguh syok sendiri mentality. They think everything revolves around Proton
Shall base on Geely platform. Now Geely is number 1 in the world. The X70 is better than X6, Q7 and Cayenne.
X70 is better than X7. It is 10 times better.
Looks likely Bavarian rescues Hindustani which rescued the poor business skill Anglo ages ago…
The legendary McLaren F1 uses a BMW engine, Toyota uses a BMW for their Supra and now we have JLR using BMW technology for their vehicles. Who’s next to jump onto the BMW wagon?
LR used to be own by BMW. The marriage was a disaster and near fatal to both. BMW losing big time money, unloading LR and Rover to rot… LR in those period is widely accepted as the worst ever.
Rebaging and sharing platforms are two different things. Example, present perdana and accord share platform. X70 and ertiga rebadge. Exora, preve, saga, iriz, persona, satria neo, gen 2, original. All peroduas rebage. Using other manufacturers engines are also common among car manufacturers.
so that indian guy who push his bmw birthday present cant do that again since bmw/jag just same car
True love are coming back! Its remind me when BMW own LR back to early 00’s. They had a Range Rover with V8 M62 engine from X5/7series, also X5 E53 with Land Rover 4×4 capability.