Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) plans to increase their manufacturing capacity to 7,00,000 units till the end of financial year 2017. The decision of hiking the outcome of production is due to the company's joint ventures in China and Brazil that demand a large number of vehicles.
The production output in China would be set at 1,10,000 to 1,30,000 units spread over the next three years. JLR's joint venture with Chery Automobile in China is expected to start their operations in 2016. Owing to the low import duty in that country, the company expects to make a lot of savings which in turn will help them reduce the price of their vehicles. The British carmaker will assemble the Evoque and Freelander there, while other cars like the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport will be manufactured at their UK-based manufacturing plants.
JLR's overall capacity for this year stands at 4,50,000 units. This comprises of 85,000 Jaguar cars and 3,50,000 to 3,70,000 Land Rover vehicles. The Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, Discovery and the Defender are currently manufactured at the automaker's Solihull plant in the UK. According to reports, this facility has a production capacity of 2,00,000 units of these cars only. As a result, there is a shortage in supply of the Discovery which in turn has affected the sales of the car.
Surjit Arora, analyst with Mumbai-based equity research firm Prabhudas Lilladher, said, "Capacity constraint would be sorted out only by the second half of FY15 where the small Jaguar or Baby Jag would be produced on the all-new aluminium architecture. At the same time, with some de-bottlenecking, the capacity could be augmented by 30,000-40,000 units. By end FY15, the overall capacity at JLR is pegged to be around 5,00,000 units."
Source: TOI