Jaguar Land Rover to build compact SUV in China
July 24, 2017 Category Automotive, Weekly
British premium automaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced it will build its new compact SUV Jaguar E-PACE in China. The company said its plants in the United Kingdom are close to full capacity, and it expects demand for the five-seat E-PACE would be high after the mid-sized F-PACE SUV became the fastest-selling car in the company’s history, with 80,000 sold so far this year. JLR launched the E-PACE in London last week, with a stunt driver making it into the Guinness Book of World Records with a 15.3 meter jump and 270-degree barrel roll in the vehicle. In China, the carmaker’s joint venture, Chery Jaguar Land Rover, will build the cars at its factory in Changshu, Jiangsu province. Vehicles produced will be for local customers. The car will go on sale in China next year. The joint venture, which started production in late 2014, is currently manufacturing the Range Rover Evoque, Land Rover Discovery Sport, and Jaguar XFL in China. John Zeng, Managing Director of LMC Automotive Shanghai, said the localized model will help JLR to make faster inroads into the compact SUV segment in China, which is currently dominated by the Audi Q3, the BMW X1 and the Mercedes-Benz GLA. SUVs have been the fastest growing sector in the Chinese market, with sales soaring nearly 17% year-on-year in the first half of the year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). Pan Qing, Executive Director of Jaguar Land Rover China, said: “The Jaguar brand has caught the imagination of Chinese consumers, as evidenced by the 144% year-on-year growth in the first six months of 2017. China, where some 120,000 JLR vehicles were sold in 2016, is the company’s largest single-country market, generating one-fifth of global sales, the China Daily reports.
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