Jaguar Land Rover delays EV roll-out

JAGUAR LAND ROVER has postponed the launch of its fully electric Range Rover and new-generation Jaguar vehicles to allow more time for testing and for EV demand to pick up, says the Guardian newspaper.

Citing sources close to the matter, the publication says deliveries of the Range Rover Electric will not commence until at least next year – almost two years after its planned debut.

The Guardian says low demand for high-end electric vehicles in Europe and elsewhere has also pushed back the introduction of two planned Jaguar EV launches by “several months”, the news coming months after the famed British marque announced it would pivot to become all-electric by mid-2026.

The first all-new Jaguar electric car previewed under its rebrand, the Type 00 (pictured), is now slated for its debut in production for next August and will be followed by a second model in December of 2027.

A smaller all-electric Range Rover originally due for launch in April 2026 – and expected to replace the Velar in the luxury brand’s portfolio – is likewise expected to be delayed, while the all-electric Land Rover Defender Sport will not arrive until the first quarter of 2027, the Guardian says.

Further, the all-electric Freelander, which is to be launched in cooperation with Chinese partner Chery, will now arrive in the second half of 2026.

The Guardian says the British marque has a waiting list of more than 60,000 buyers for the Range Rover Electric but did not disclose how many were awaiting the launch of other models.

In an address to investors last month, Jaguar Land Rover chief executive officer Adrian Mardell said the manufacturer is happy to delay the roll-out of its next-generation electric vehicles if it means getting them right.

“We’re not going to rush that transition, we are going to nail it,” he stated.

Mr Mardell cautioned that the brand’s profitability will be hit hard this year as headwinds from President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a weaker dollar make its vehicles more expensive in the United States, its largest sales market.

Its sales in China have also suffered in recent times as Chinese consumers “increasingly choose domestic luxury cars over Western premium brands”, the Guardian said.

Earlier this week, JLR announced that it will cut up to 500 management jobs in response to its slowing sales, the majority of which are understood to come through voluntary redundancies.

Sales in the United States are down more than 11 per cent after the company recently paused shipments in response to President Donald Trump’s decision to increase tariffs on vehicle imports from abroad.

JLR has since restarted shipments after the US agreed to lower tariffs on vehicles imported from the UK, but still faces higher tariffs on models built in the European Union, including on the Slovakian-made Land Rover Defender.

Additionally, and according to the company’s annual report, JLR staff costs have increased from £2.5 billion ($A5.1b) to £3.4 billion ($A7.0b) in the year ending March 2025.

As a result, JLR chief financial officer Richard Molyneux warned the company’s profit margin is expected to fall from 8.5 per cent to between five and seven per cent this financial year.

“The scale and speed of the challenges that we face, particularly the speed, means there will be a dip,” he said.

“We are very well hedged in the short term, but outside of that short term, it will certainly hurt us.”

According to Automotive News Europe, the varying speed of electric vehicle take-up has persuaded JLR to prolong production of smaller combustion engine vehicles for an unspecified period, forcing it to increase its planned £15 billion ($A30.9b) investment budget for the five years from 2023 to £18 billion ($A37.1b).