JLR has confirmed that its plant in Nitra, Slovakia, will produce electric vehicles as part of the company’s Reimagine Strategy that will see nine new electric vehicles launched by 2030.
Hailed as an incredible success, the Slovakian JLR plant currently produces the Defender and Discovery. So far, it has assembled over 365,000 of them.
JLR Executive Director of Industrial Operations Barbara Bergmeier, said: “I am thrilled to announce that our fantastic state-of-the-art plant in Nitra will be producing electric vehicles this decade as part of our electrification strategy. This is a vote of confidence in the plant’s 5,000 skilled and dedicated people and demonstrates the key role Nitra plays in our current successful performance. I also want to thank our suppliers, who have followed us to Nitra and supported our increases in production.”
JLR Nitra Operations Director Guillermo Mancholas said: “Today is a real milestone for our plant, which has gone from strength to strength since the lines started work five years ago. We took changes, such adding the Defender 130 and moving from two to three shifts increasing production from 2,000 to 3,000 cars a week, in our stride. The news that we will be delivering electric vehicle production is confirmation of our key role in the Reimagine Strategy.”
JLR has invested 1.3 billion Euros to launch the assembly plant—a highly digitalized and automated plant. Since then, it has invested a further 60 million Euros in new technology, land, buildings, and software.
Built exclusively at Nitra, the new Defender has been a particular financial success story for the company. As JLR’s bestselling model for last two financial years, Defender is generating ten times the revenue that the Classic Defender was in 2015.
It is also currently a best-seller for JLR Philippines which has celebrated its 700th unit sold of the iconic off-roader.
JLR is rapidly transforming its industrial footprint to prepare for electrification, and the electrification of Nitra represents the last piece in that jigsaw.
Halewood will become JLR’s first all-electric production facility, Solihull will produce electric Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Jaguar models, the Engine Manufacturing Center in Wolverhampton will build Electric Drive Units (EDUs) and Castle Bromwich will be repurposed to build body panels for EVs. Meanwhile JLR has this week opened a new Future Energy Lab in Whitley, Coventry, UK, to develop Electric Drive Units for the company in-house.
Further details on the electric models to be built at Nitra will be confirmed at a later date.
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