The all-new 'indestructible' Defender will be built on JLR's aluminium architectureJaguar Land Rover looking at Poland and Hungary as potential sites for a new facility which will produce the next-generation Defender
Jaguar Land Rover is poised to build a new factory in Eastern Europe according to a report in the Financial Times.
However, Autocar can reveal that the plant will build models based on the company’s new aluminium architecture and that the upcoming Defender replacement is the lead candidate for overseas production.
Known internally as ‘Project Darwin’ and codenamed L663, the new Defender should be the main product line for the new facility. However, if sales of the Range Rover Sport continue to boom and the Jaguar F-Pace crossover is also a sales success, lack of capacity in the UK might mean another model has to be made at the new plant.
Autocar understands that the current thinking among JLR planners is that the Discovery 5 – codenamed L462 – could also be made at the new facility.
Sources say JLR bosses have narrowed down the potential factory site to two areas.
The first possibility is near Gyor in Hungary, which would allow the company to take advantage of the supplier base built up by Audi for the local production of both the TT coupe and its four-cylinder engines.
The second possible site is somewhere in Poland, though the sources could not be more specific.
Although the move to build an East European plant might prove controversial, JLR’s three UK plants are already packed to capacity.
The Evoque and Discovery Sport – both based on JLR's steel D8 platform – are currently built in the north west at Halewood, which is thought to be operating at maximum capacity.
The Castle Bromwich site will build the new XF and the F-Pace, which are based on the smaller D7a aluminium architecture.
Solihull is building the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and the Jaguar XE. Trying squeeze in both Discovery 5 production as well as the expected third Range Rover model could result in the Discovery 5 being made in Eastern Europe.
This production plan seems to suggest that Range Rover models should be made in the UK, but Land Rover models could be sourced from outside the UK.
JLR also has plans to relieve the pressure on Halewood, according to Autocar sources. The company is considering moving production of some of its steel platform models to the Magna facility in Graz, Austria.
Magna, which has built cars for many companies, including the Countryman for Mini, could potentially build some Discovery Sport models. Sources say Magna might also build a potential baby Jaguar crossover, which would be based on the same platform as the next Range Rover Evoque.
JLR sources privately insist that opening a plant in central or Eastern Europe and moving some production to Austria is not a vote of no-confidence in the UK, but simply a function of the UK plants getting close to capacity and the need to spread its production footprint, following the lead of rivals such as Mercedes and BMW.
JLR already has production in China and is ‘strongly considering’ opening a plant in Mexico.
News that significant levels of future production will be moved outside the UK by JLR is likely to contribute to the political debate about the upcoming referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union.
However, spreading production across different continents and currency zones has become standard practice by all global car makers.
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