Tata Motors' British subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is gearing up to increase the installed capacity at its Castle Bromwich manufacturing unit to produce new models of Jaguar and revamp the niche brand. Reportedly, JLR is proposing to devote a sum of around £ 200 million in order to expand this unit by 50 per cent. It is known that the investment in company’s Bromwich facility has been presented to trade unions before voting over a new pay deal within JLR on 3rd May 2012.
The company is planning to produce its new Jaguar F-type sports car, which will be the successor of the iconic E-type, at the Castle Bromwich plant. It has come forward with an investment plan just three years after it was planning to downsize employees and UK by shutting this facility because of major downfall in sales.
Britain's coalition government will welcome this move to raise production capacity since it is looking for expansion in exports made by British auto manufacturers in order to maintain balance in the economy. JLR is witnessing excellent sales because of increasing demand for its premium vehicles in emerging markets across the world, such as China.
Before the Bromwich unit, the company also infused a decent amount in its Solihull manufacturing plant. In order to expand the manufacturing of its popular Range Rover Evoque, the company also started to look for 1,000 new employees in Halewood, Merseyside in the initial months of 2012. Till now, Land Rover sales have propelled the turnover of the company.
In Q1 of 2012, the European sales of JLR surged 24.9 per cent, amounting to 20,734 units. During the period, the sales of Jaguar increased by only 7 per cent to 4,164 units, whereas the figures of Land Rover expanded by 30 per cent resulting to 16,570 units. Therefore, in order to boost the sales of the former, the company aims to bring forth a convertible version of the F-type by 2013 and then launch its coupe version later on.
On Research and Development (R&D), JLR is investing a sum of £ 1.5 billion each year and aims to unveil 40 new versions or models by the end of 2017. In this regard, thousands of employees have been recruited by the company in UK since 2009. Owing to the decent demand of Range Rover Evoque, the company is all set to post record pre-tax profits of around £ 1.5 billion for 2012.
