Jaguar Land Rover owned by
Tata Motors has invested 600 million pounds (Rs 5572 crore approx.) in the West
Midlands region in the UK to support product creation and advanced vehicle
manufacturing. The largest single investment has been made at the company’s
Castle Bromwich plant, where over £400m has been spent in new and upgraded
facilities to support the introduction of the all-new Jaguar XF. This 600m pounds
investment has been made across three sites: Castle Bromwich Advanced
Manufacturing Plant, Whitley Advanced Design and Development Centre and the
National Automotive Innovation Centre. More
than £400m committed at Castle Bromwich to support the introduction of Jaguar’s
latest model, the all-new XF.
Around £320m went towards construction of a 74,500 sq m aluminium body
shop. It was the largest single investment in the history of the Castle
Bromwich site.
Jaguar Land Rover CEO Dr. Ralf
Speth said: “Jaguar Land Rover continues to demonstrate its unwavering support
to the British automotive industry through sustained investments in advanced
research, technology and innovation.
“This investment, made here in
the heartland of our UK business operations, signals the confidence we have in
this region to support the creation, engineering and manufacturing of ultra-low
emission, premium British products, today and in the future.”
The investment in the aluminium
body shop completed the site’s transformation into a global centre of
excellence for lightweight vehicle manufacturing. Today, sales of Jaguar cars
built at the Castle Bromwich plant are almost double that of five years ago
thanks to a refreshed model range which also includes the XJ and F-Type.
The introduction of the
all-new XF completes an all-aluminum line-up at the Midlands plant which has
committed significant investment to every stage of the manufacturing process.
£16m has been spent on a new blanker line which will allow the plant to turn
coils of aluminium into ‘blank sheets’ that will be pressed into body panels
and parts on a new Aida £50m press line which is currently under construction.
This line will feed in to the new £320m body shop, the most flexible and
versatile of its kind throughout Jaguar Land Rover, capable of switching
between Jaguar’s entire range of models mid-production. Finally £30m has been
invested in significantly upgrading the trim and final assembly hall.