Land Rover has plans to revolutionize the next-generation Evoque and Discovery Sport by building them on an all-new EV-focused platform with a gasoline-powered range extender.
Called Modular Electrified Architecture (EMA), the new platform will be designed from the ground up to accommodate advanced driver assistance systems and extensive cloud connectivity.
The simplicity inherent in the EMA should also address the quality problems of Jaguar Land Rover, which, recently admitted JLR boss Thierry Bolloré, could cost the company “100,000 sales per year”.
The massive EMA project will be part of a £ 10 billion investment program through 2026. JLR’s broader plans include the launch of the all-new Range Rover Sport 3, Velar 2 and Discovery 6 models, all based on the upcoming MLA platform. The Discovery 6 is now expected to be built in Solihull, rather than Slovakia, after the Jaguar F-Pace is fully withdrawn to make way for that brand’s next-generation all-electric lineup.
EMA is extremely important to JLR’s future prospects and its goal of consistently becoming profitable. Indeed, JLR estimates that EMA-based vehicles will account for half of all company sales by 2030 and potentially 325,000 high-profit models per year.
Autocar understands that the first new car based on the EMA will be the next Evoque, launched in 2024 and soon followed by the third-generation Discovery Sport. The EMA production line is expected to be installed at the company’s Halewood plant.
However, Land Rover has already revealed to investors that two more models of the Defender family will be launched over the next six years. JLR has not released any details about the two new Defender models, although one of them is supposed to be a pure EV and neither will be based on the D7x platform used by the ‘current L663 generation Defender.
The result is that both should be based on EMA, so it is possible that JLR’s factory in Slovakia could also receive an EMA production line to enable it to build the next generation of vehicles for the market. European Union.
Autocar also understands that the EMA-based models will make a tangible upgrade. According to details revealed to investors, JLR says its future models – starting with the MLA-based Range Rover next year – will be firmly launched in the most profitable market sectors.
Specifically, this likely means that the new Discovery Sport and Evoque will benefit from higher entry prices, in part due to the additional development and construction costs of a significantly electrified platform. Expect showroom prices in late 2024 to start around £ 40,000 and both SUV models to have ranges of at least 60 miles.
By 2030, JLR says it expects EMA-based vehicles to account for nearly 50% of all its sales (or 340,000 cars) and MLA-based vehicles around 40%. Jaguar electric vehicles are listed for a modest 12%.
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Source: www.autocar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-05-16 23:01:24
