JLR invests in EV production at Slovakian plant

JLR is reconfiguring its plant in Nitra, Slovakia, to produce electric vehicles (EVs) in line with its Reimagine strategy.

The Nitra plant currently produces the Defender and Discovery. By 2030, JLR plans to launch nine new EVs. It has not confirmed which models will be built in Slovakia.

Guillermo Mancholas, JLR Nitra operations director, 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."

Fleet customers will be "front and centre" as JLR's new electric line-up launches.

JLR invested £1.13bn to launch Nitra, a highly digitised and automated plant. Since then, the brand has invested a further £52m in new technology, land, buildings and software.

A further £15bn will be invested over five years to transform JLR's vehicles to electric and become carbon net zero by 2039. This includes electrifying its luxury Range Rover, Defender, Jaguar and Discovery brands, and launching nine pure electric models by 2030. 

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 Centre 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 £250m Future Energy Lab in Whitley, Coventry, UK, to develop Electric Drive Units for the company in house