Jaguar Land Rover to shift Jaguar XE production to Castle Bromwich plant
14 Sep 2016
Tata Motors-owned luxury carmaker, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), has decided to shift the production of the Jaguar XE to its Castle Bromwich plant for which it has invested £100 million.
The Jaguar XE is currently manufactured at the company's Solihull Plant, but production would be gradually transferred to the Castle Bromwich plant in Birmingham, in the UK itself. On the other hand, the newly launched Jaguar F-Pace would continue to be manufactured at the Solihull plant. Also, with the arrival of the XE at the Birmingham plant, all Jaguar sports and saloon cars would now be manufactured at one location.
As of now, Jaguar Land Rover has collectively invested £1 billion on infrastructure both at Solihull and Castle Bromwich.
The investment would see the total capex in the site at over £500 million, over the last two years, supporting continuous improvement in the production of XF, F-TYPE and XJ, also built at the plant.
This investment in new press lines, body shops and final assembly halls supported production of the three Jaguar models built on the company's technically advanced aluminium architecture.
Wolfgang Stadler, Jaguar Land Rover's executive director of manufacturing, said "The significant investment to create two centres of excellence in aluminium vehicle manufacturing utilising shared technologies was deliberate. It gives us the flexibility to quickly respond to consumer demand for our growing range of products,"auto.ndtv.com reported.
Nicolas Guibert, Castle Bromwich operations director, said "2016 is a pivotal year for Castle Bromwich. The arrival of the XE sees us increase our model lines and volume.
"This plant has a rich heritage and is undergoing its most significant transformation in decades, with major infrastructure projects either complete or under way. The commissioning of our all-new press line and launch of our body shop to support the introduction of XE means Castle Bromwich is future-proof," Guibert added, ET Auto reported.
