Jaguar Land Rover Could Assemble Vehicles in the US

Jaguar Land Rover‘s CEO admits the company wants to build vehicles in the U.S., but wants to see an increase in sales first.

Speaking to WardsAuto, JLR CEO Ralf Speth says the company is “always sitting there” asking whether it can start manufacturing in the U.S. He admits the British automaker is a very small company, and in order to pull the trigger on building a factory in the U.S., it needs to first reach a certain volume of vehicles.

Currently, JLR vehicles sold in the U.S. are imported from the U.K., along with models assembled by Magna Steyr in Austria. The company has assembly plants in other parts of the world, including Brazil, China, India, and an upcoming plant in Slovakia.

The CEO wouldn’t share what target volume the company would have to do in the U.S. before it would open up a factory. And despite sales volume growing in the U.S., JLR needs more dominant models in order to justify stateside production.

“We have 15 or 16 nameplates [and] if you divide every and each number by this 15 or 16 then you will recognize the remaining number per nameplate is not big enough,” said Speth. “So can you maybe encourage [sales and marketing and dealers] to sell a little bit more from at least one or two nameplates?”

Still, JLR is investing in the U.S. with a new headquarters in Mahwah, New Jersey that officially opened last week. The company also recently announced a commitment with Google’s Waymo, supplying 20,000 I-Paces for self-driving development.

[Source: WardsAuto]

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