Jaguar Land Rover to cut production as chip shortage continues

The Guardian reported that the carmaker, a subsidiary of the Mumbai-traded Tata Motors, would be trimming its output at plants in Solihull and Halewood from January through March.

It cited “industry sources” as saying the company was trying to prioritise its most profitable vehicles, at a time the wider carmaking sector was facing continued semiconductor shortages.

JLR reported a record order book of over 205,000 vehicles in November, but the UK’s largest car manufacturer was struggling to ramp up production of its new Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Defender models amid the chip shortage.

The Guardian said the Solihull facility would move to a single shift from the current two-shift schedule on the production lines for the lower-priced Range Rover Velar and Jaguar F-Pace models.

It would also add a shift to its production of Range Rover body panels at the same time.

At Halewood in Merseyside, which makes the Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque models, would drop to one shift as well.

The news came as car production in the UK continued to languish behind pre-pandemic numbers, with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders reporting on Friday that 69,524 cars rolled off British production lines in November.

While that figure was 7% higher than the same month last year, it was still 48% below production in November 2019.

JLR was last week left scrambling to find a new chief executive officer after Thierry Bollore announced his resignation.

In the company’s most recent set of results in November, Bollore said he believed the chip shortage would improve in the months ahead, after the company confirmed it had been loss-making for the last year-and-a-half.

“We expect to continue to improve our performance in the second half of the year, as new agreements with semiconductor partners take effect, enabling us to build and deliver more vehicles to our clients,” Bollore said at the time.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.