Jaguar Land Rover two week shutdown

Tuesday 9 October 2018

DR JONATHAN Owens, Lecturer in Operations Management at the University of Salford, comments on the latest developments at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which has announced a two week shutdown at its Castle Bromwich site.

The announcement comes after approximately 1,000 workers at the site will move from a five-day to a three-day week from October until Christmas. Dr Owens says the company may have been too slow to get into hybrid vehicles.

He said: “This latest announcement comes after a ‘war of words’ relating to Brexit and the UK government’s perceived message about owning a new diesel car. The ongoing discussion on how this may impact the environment, especially in light of headline news related to climate change and of course the tax added and rapid value deprecation, has all led to a rapid downturn in diesel car sales, which are predominantly the engines used at JLR.

“JLR announced in April that 1,000 UK jobs would go, because of the rapid decline in diesel sales, which had a big impact on their profits, when compared to the same period the previous year. This is a great shame when considering the new generation diesels are ultra low emission produced by the company. However it seems this is not considered the next generation by its customers.

“It is evident the company are making big financial investments and technology upgrades to meet its low-carbon commitments. In addition, the company has said there would be an electric option for each of its models post 2020. Their first venture into the Electric Vehicle (EV) market was the Jaguar I-Pace, starting at £59,000, and was made in Austria. Also, the company has revealed they will is to transfer all production of its Land Rover Discovery model from the West Midlands to a plant in Slovakia by the end of this year and perhaps more production there in the short term, whilst they develop and implement EV production lines in the Midlands.

“So perhaps a significant question is are they moving quickly enough for their traditional market? It appears evident the company has been very slow in getting into hybrids and now they have to speed up in getting fully into electric vehicles, especially if they want a piece of the EV market.”

Find out more

Sam Wood

0161 295 5361

Jaguar Land Rover two week shutdown

Find out more

Related news

University of Salford to host Greater Manchester Archaeology Day

Salford awarded for excellence in sustainability

Celebrate, appreciate, inspire – AHP day

China taking over world sport

Energy House plays a role in the launch of UK energy efficiency campaign #missingpiece

Hit those Creative Heights