Jaguar Land Rover ‘delays launch of new EVs to ‘allow more time for demand' – days after axing 500 UK jobs
ENGINE CUT Jaguar Land Rover 'delays launch of new EVs to 'allow more time for demand' – days after axing 500 UK jobs
JAGUAR Land Rover has delayed the launch of its new EVs to "allow more time for demand" just days after axing 500 UK jobs.
The luxury carmaker has set back the launch of its electric Range Rover and Jaguar models to allow more time for testing and for demand to pick up.
2
Jaguar Land Rover has delayed the launch of its new EVs
Credit: Getty
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has informed customers that deliveries of the Range Rover Electric will not start until next year.
Meanwhile, production of Jaguar's first EV is not expected to start production until August 2026.
Deliveries of the Range Rover electric were due to begin in late 2025.
The models are the first electric models to be manufactured directly by JLR.
It is now understood that they require extended testing which has partly led to the delay.
In a statement to Reuters, the company said: "Our plans and vehicle architectures are flexible so we can adapt to different market and client demands."
They still maintained it would sell electric versions for all its brands by 2030.
Production of the Range Rover Velar's electric version could also be delayed further.
It was originally slated for production from April 2026.
Jaguar shares 'intriguing' image as they tease motor fans to 'stay tuned to find out' about re-brand, Jaguar
Tata Motors, who own JLR, posted a 10.7% drop in first-quarter sales earlier this month.
The company was hit by a temporary pause in shipments to the US and a wind-down of the Jaguar brand's legacy models.
Last month, the company cut its target for earnings margin before interest and taxes for the fiscal year 2026 to 5-7%, down from 10%.
It comes amid uncertainty in the global motor industry spurred by US tariffs.
Just this week, Jaguar Land Rover axed up to 500 jobs in the UK.
The iconic British manufacturer said that a large number of managerial jobs would be cut, saying it would offer voluntary redundancies.
It follows pressure on sales due to trade tariff woes and the firm said around 1.5 per cent of its UK workforce would be affected by the job cuts.
The car giant previously warned that tariffs on British made motors being sold to the US would have a direct hit on its profits.
It comes after the iconic British car manufacturer sparked outrage in November when it launched a glossy ad campaign with bright colours and catwalk models.
The controversial ad excluded any images of its sleek sports cars as it touted its transition to a fully electric, ultra-luxury company.
Earlier this month it was revealed that Jaguar sales in Europe have plunged 97.5 per cent following the botched rebrand.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
7 hours ago
- Spectator
A new water regime must still reward private investors
The weekend's torrential Yorkshire rain amid a hosepipe ban offered a handy metaphor for the chaos that has befallen the privatised UK water industry. Sir Jon Cunliffe's Independent Water Commission report – aiming for a 'fundamental reset' to restore public confidence, clean our waterways and ensure future supply – is welcome for the clarity of its central conclusion: that unfit-for-purpose Ofwat and a jumble of other regulators should be replaced by a single body with more teeth and comprehensive oversight of the sector. So far, so good. Cunliffe – a veteran of the Treasury, the Bank of England and Brussels – can also be applauded for his bureaucratic cunning in tabling no fewer than 88 recommendations, in the hope that perhaps eight of them might actually be adopted. But one reform he was forbidden from contemplating was the renationalisation of water companies, whatever the alleged extent of their failures and dividend-gouging under foreign and private-equity ownership. And that means future investment in leak-free pipes and reservoirs, supply to new housing and elimination of sewage slicks remains dependent on the willingness of private investors to put capital at risk – a mechanism widely misunderstood by consumers and campaigners who believe all shareholder rewards from water supply are somehow exploitative and wrong. Cunliffe's report talks about creating a stable regime that reduces uncertainty and thereby attracts 'low risk, low return' long-term investors, rather than (though he doesn't quite put it this way) the fast-buck financiers who gamed Ofwat so effectively in an era when successive governments were far less concerned with infrastructure improvement than the voter optics of lower water bills. In the Commons, Environment Secretary Steve Reed gave grudging spin about 'fair' returns for shareholders who meet their obligations. I note his previous career in educational publishing and hope he has texts in praise of capitalism on his bookshelf, because having ruled out state ownership he must now embrace investors who will naturally be sceptical of Labour promises. At least Cunliffe has given him a blueprint. Man of secrets David Alliance, who has died aged 93, was a man of secrets. An Iranian immigrant trader who started buying up Lancashire cotton mills in the 1950s, he eventually controlled, in the Coats Viyella combine of the 1990s, most of what remained of the British textile industry. That he liked to hold his cards close to his chest made him a potent deal-maker but a difficult client for his ghostwriters, of whom for a year or so I was one – though my version of his memoirs remained unpublished, eventually to be overtaken by Ivan Fallon's A Bazaar Life (2015). 'You research it,' Alliance would say with a hint of irritation when I tried to probe him about his takeover battles or his clandestine role in rescuing Falasha Jews from persecution in Ethiopia. So inscrutable was he that in the end I missed the core objective of my commission, which was a book saying that treacherous boardroom colleagues had thwarted his efforts to sustain Coats Viyella as a global competitor against cheap foreign rivals, before forcing his 1999 resignation. I suspect neither a nine-digit fortune from his second business empire in mail-order, nor a Lib Dem peerage, nor his name on what is now the Alliance Manchester Business School, brought consolation to his rather lonely later life. He seemed to have few real friends and I was never one of them, but I salute him as a remarkable entrepreneur. Sinking flagship 'The knives are out for BP's Norwegian chairman Helge Lund,' I wrote in April. This followed the energy giant's shareholder-driven U-turn, refocusing on fossil fuels and dumping the commitment to renewables for which Lund and his former chief executive Bernard Looney were largely responsible. Sure enough, Lund's own plan to step down 'most likely during 2026' has been accelerated to this October. His successor, Albert Manifold, previously ran the Irish building materials group CRH whose product range, embracing concrete, aggregates and bitumen, demonstrates a relatively low level of ambition to approach net zero any time soon. Tellingly, its share price has more than doubled over the past three years while BP's has stayed exactly where it was. Underlying that difference is the fact that CRH also led the current fashion for seeking higher valuations elsewhere by shifting its primary listing to New York in 2023. As the activist BP shareholder Elliott Management shouts about a need for decisive leadership to counter chronic underperformance, watch whether this sinking flagship of the FTSE 100 follows CRH across the pond. In one dramatic move, I fear that would nullify most of Chancellor Rachel Reeves's recent initiatives to inject new life into London's capital market. Storm warning I set off for my summer sojourn in France with a nagging concern about relative values. The Financial Times reports that the global cryptocurrency market has reached $4 trillion (£3 trillion) and is likely to go higher as funds flood in following the passage of Donald Trump's pro-crypto legislation. The market capitalisation of Nvidia, the Californian AI microchip giant, has also passed $4 trillion and here too pundits say there's further to go. Both those markers easily surpass the combined market value of the FTSE 100 – the top one hundred London-listed companies – at £2.1 trillion, which itself reflects an all-time high for the index at 9000. Yet economies flatline, inflation ticks up, government debt soars and geopolitics are in perpetual turmoil. Something surely has to give, maybe next month, maybe in the more traditional crash month of October. Ah well, fine French lunches should keep me sanguine – and, I hope, beguile you when I write about them.
Spectator
7 hours ago
- Spectator
How private equity ruined Britain
What has happened to Britain's rivers isn't a mistake. The fact that serious pollution is up 60 per cent on the year, or that only one in seven rivers can be called ecologically healthy, is the result of corporate tactics. It is effluent from the murky world of private equity. Some 2.5 million people in the UK now work for a business that is ultimately owned by private equity. Since the 2008 financial crisis, Britain has become a prime target for takeovers, driven by low company valuations, favourable exchange rates and a pliable regulatory environment. Everything from Bella Italia to the Blackpool Tower, Travelodge to Legoland, the AA to Zizzi, has been owned by private equity. Today, it claims to make around £7 in every £100 generated for the British economy. In the first half of last year, 60 per cent of the total invested in UK firms via private equity was from abroad. Many will see this as a success story: British ingenuity attracting international money. Those who worry about foreign investment are seen as misguided and a little jingoistic. The emphasis should be on the investment, rather than worrying that our high streets and infrastructure have been sold off to foreign buyers looking for a good deal. The reply to these free marketeers can be seen floating down our rivers and in the balance sheets of our creaking water companies. Back in 1991, water firms had a debt-to-equity ratio of 4 per cent. Today it's around 70 per cent, with some firms having neared 95 per cent. Where did that money go? Clearly not enough of it has been funnelled into infrastructure. Take Thames Water, which serves a quarter of all British households. In 2006, the utility was bought by a consortium led by the Australian private equity firm the Mac-quarie Group. Over the next 11 years, Thames Water's debts grew from £3.2 billion to £10 billion, while £2.8 billion was paid out in dividends. Macquarie borrowed against the value of the business – reservoirs, treatments works, even future cash flow – to pay out even more to shareholders. Thames Water's parent company became enmeshed in a complex web of intercompany loans and shell structures in places like the Cayman Islands. During the period of Macquarie's ownership, the company paid just £100,000 in corporation tax. Thames Water is now so heavily indebted, its infrastructure so degraded, that there are serious discussions about renationalisation. Macquarie defends its behaviour, arguing that they did invest in infrastructure and that Thames Water was never publicly criticised by Ofwat during its tenure. To which one might reply, so much the worse for the regulator. Perhaps that's why Labour announced this week that they will scrap Ofwat. As it happens, Macquarie also owned the Hampshire ferry company Wightlink, which under its control saw borrowing increase to pay shareholders, with corresponding timetable reductions, the near doubling of ticket prices and a lack of investment in ferry upgrades. It's almost as if Macquarie has a strategy. Of course, not all private equity works in this way. Some companies really do improve the target firms. Pret A Manger is an obvious example, where Bridgepoint helped Pret expand to hundreds of locations before selling it for five times the purchase price, giving every employee £1,000 in the process. But plenty of people within the world of high finance have expressed concern about some of the practices of private equity. Luke Johnson, the former chairman of Gail's and former owner of the Ivy, said that in private equity, 'attention is not directed towards the common wealth, but enriching the management, buyout partners and their institutional backers. That is the nature of the game. To argue otherwise is bogus'. The former CEO of one of the largest institutional investors in the US, Theresa Whitmarsh, says she was told by one private equity founder that the industry is 'a zero-sum game, a blood sport'. This is because growing a business is much harder than squeezing one. If you don't plan on holding on to a company for the long term, making money can be devilishly simple. First, identify an undervalued business, one that may have struggled but has hard assets that could be flogged on. Then take out loans of up to 80 or 90 per cent of the value of the target company's assets. Crucially, load the target company with that debt and make them pay the cost of their own acquisition. Next, send in your partners, who will either try to juice the company's income or slash spending, all while charging fees for these services. Within the first two years of a public-to-private equity takeover, around 13 per cent of the workforce tends to be laid off. Expert negotiators are brought in to bid down suppliers and assets are sold. There is a laser-like focus on shifting the balance sheet: spend less, earn more, cash in what you can. Never mind the fact that a lack of investment will create problems down the line, that staff turnover rises as wages are squeezed and suppliers abandon the company. Such problems are for the next owner to discover. Private equity is reaching ever deeper into British life. Take the village of Little-bredy in Dorset. It was recently acquired wholesale by a firm called Belport, which bought all 32 properties in the village from Sir Philip Williams, whose family had owned it for seven generations. One resident who had lived in Littlebredy for 21 years was evicted to make way for an office, while part of the village has been closed to public access. Belport insists that rumours of a mass eviction in January are incorrect. But no one is quite sure what they plan on doing with the estate. Perhaps the village will be turned into a private members' club like Soho Farmhouse, or maybe it'll become a high-end holiday park or wedding venue. When private equity comes to town, every asset is sweated for all its worth. It's strange to see an English village bought up in the name of shareholder value. But things get much stranger when we look at unloved parts of the British state. The number of children's care homes that are operated by private equity has more than doubled over the past five years. Many of the larger operators have profits in the tens of millions of pounds and margins sit at more than 20 per cent. According to the Local Government Association, children's care homes are charging the taxpayer as much as an annual £3.2 million per child – and fees are growing well above inflation. Meanwhile, many local authorities are themselves close to bankruptcy as they scrabble to pay for these services. An independent review into the sector recently found that 'there are few indicators to suggest that high prices are leading to better quality homes for children'. Local councils are legally bound to ensure that children with serious disabilities and those without parents are looked after. Most of the time, councils meet these obligations by outsourcing. That means costs can be locked in for the length of the contracts, which makes cash flow easier for local authorities to manage. But it also gives civil servants plausible deniability. When something goes wrong, they can point to the private company and shift the blame. And the likelihood of something going wrong is much higher with private equity, because the portfolio companies are highly leveraged. For every £1 in debt these children's homes are, there's just 5p of cash flow for debt servicing. For non-private-equity homes, that figure is around 40p. This is exactly how private equity is supposed to work – spare cash is a form of inefficiency. So instead that money is redeployed or used to pay shareholders. The problems come with economic uncertainty, when rates spike or credit availability shrinks. It's a pattern we see repeated again and again. Southern Cross, a care group for the elderly, collapsed in 2011. Its previous owners, Blackstone, the largest private equity firm in the world, had performed a classic industry trick: sell off the properties, then lease them back and pocket the difference. (Morrisons' new owners are currently using this sale and leaseback strategy having said during the buyout that they wouldn't.) Meanwhile, Blackstone expanded the group through debt finance. When the 2008 crash came, social care budgets were squeezed and Southern Cross was unable to repay its debts. Blackstone had already cashed out, making £500 million in the process, while 31,000 residents were thrown into limbo. The group was broken up and sold off, with councils footing the bill for higher operating fees and transition costs. In many private-equity-run care homes, everything is cut to within an inch of what regulations allow. Workers are kept on minimum wage or brought in from agencies, and the staff-to-residents ratio is kept as low as is permitted. Food is purchased in bulk and for the lowest possible price while maintenance on buildings is deferred. A study in the United States found that care homes owned by private equity have a mortality rate 10 per cent higher than those managed by medical professionals. Private equity firms tend to have large and diverse portfolios, meaning that expertise doesn't necessarily translate across the different companies they own. Knowing how to run an efficient biscuit factory doesn't mean you know how to run an efficient chain of veterinary clinics. The one thing that all businesses have to worry about is tax, meaning this tends to be what private equity firms actually focus on. One study found that up to 40 per cent of the savings brought by private equity come from tweaking tax arrangements. The large amounts of debt often helps. Target companies offset the cost of servicing debts against their tax bill. Gatwick Airport didn't pay a penny in corporation tax for the six years it was owned by private equity, because its buyout loans were tax deductible. Selling a company isn't always even necessary to make a profit. When Toys 'R' Us filed for bankruptcy, it emerged that the private equity firms which bought it still ended up in the black. They'd charged Toys 'R' Us fees that more than recouped the relatively small amount of capital they'd put up for the acquisition. The staff, meanwhile, saw their pension contributions disappear. Most of the money for acquisitions is paid by institutional investors like pension funds. Repayments to these limited partners are fixed, but the upsides for private equity can be huge. The irony, of course, is that pensions are supposed to create stability for workers. Yet these savings are being used to acquire companies and often cut costs, sometimes even dismantling pension pots. Take the Yorkshire mattress manufacturer Silentnight. In the late 2000s, the family-run firm was facing cash-flow problems. It found salvation in HIG Europe, an affiliate of the Miami-based private equity firm HIG Capital. This gave Silentnight a line of credit, allowing the company to weather the effects of the 2008 recession. That was, until HIG suddenly removed it, demanding the debt be repaid. Within days, Silentnight went into administration and was snapped up by HIG. It's a classic example of what's known as loan-to-own. In the process, the private equity firm jettisoned the company's hefty pensions obligations. Instead, the state-run emergency Pension Protection Fund had to pick up the tab, suddenly making Silentnight an attractive, solvent company once again. The regulator twice accused HIG of engineering an unnecessary insolvency in order to shift pensions on to the public purse. Eventually, after more than a decade, HIG settled for £25 million but did not accept any liability. Staff pensions had been cut by a third, the equivalent of £50 million. HIG was still quids in. Perversely, the state-run Pension Protection Fund is a major investor in private equity firms, some of whom have been accused of offshoring profits to avoid tax. No one could object to genuine investment, but this type of business practice gives capitalism a bad name. In Britain's desperation for foreign money, we've invited in a whole class of savvy corporate raiders who know how to loot UK Plc – and get away with it. The result is that we've been left, quite literally, in the shit.
South Wales Guardian
7 hours ago
- South Wales Guardian
Keir Starmer and Narendra Modi set to sign off on Britain-India trade deal
The Prime Minister and his Indian counterpart also agreed ahead of their meeting on Thursday to ramp up joint efforts to tackle illegal migration and organised crime. The UK-India trade deal is understood to be the largest of its kind for its economic impact on Britain. It will see tariffs on an array of British goods reduced from an average of 15% to 3%, with the aim of boosting the £11 billion of imports into the south Asian nation. Whisky tariffs will be slashed in half, according to the Government, and will fall further over successive years, while other industries including soft drinks, cars and cosmetics are also expected to see cheaper duties. Before his meeting with Mr Modi to confirm the deal, Sir Keir said: 'Our landmark trade deal with India is a major win for Britain. It will create thousands of British jobs across the UK, unlock new opportunities for businesses and drive growth in every corner of the country, delivering on our Plan for Change. 'We're putting more money in the pockets of hardworking Brits and helping families with the cost of living, and we're determined to go further and faster to grow the economy and raise living standards across the UK.' The deal is expected to result in 2,200 jobs across the country and £6 billion investment by British and Indian businesses. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the investment will 'reach all regions and nations of the UK so working people in every community can feel the benefits'. He added: 'The almost £6 billion in new investment and export wins announced today will deliver thousands of jobs and shows the strength of our partnership with India as we ensure the UK is the best place in the world to invest and do business.' The UK and India are also bolstering co-operation on tackling corruption, fraud, organised crime and illegal migration, by sharing criminal records and other intelligence. The deal has not given the UK as much access as it would have liked to India's financial and legal services industries. The agreement promises some benefits for the UK's financial services, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves understood to have pushed on behalf of the sector in discussions with her Indian counterpart. But more wide-ranging access was not agreed, and talks continue on a bilateral investment treaty aimed at protecting British investments in India and vice versa. The two nations also continue to discuss UK plans for a tax on high-carbon industries, which India believes could hit its imports unfairly. Negotiations on the deal began when Boris Johnson was prime minister in 2022, and were concluded in May this year. Labour sought to portray closing the deal, as well as trade agreements with the US and the EU, as evidence of the Government's pragmatism and global outlook. But shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said it had only been made possible 'because of Brexit delivered by the Conservatives'. He added: 'Any trade deal that can successfully cut regulation which stops Britain's makers from creating new jobs and wealth will be a step in the right direction. 'But the irony should not be lost on anyone that any gains from this trade deal will be blown out of the water by (Deputy Prime Minister) Angela Rayner's union charter, stifling business with red tape, the jobs tax and, come autumn, Rachel Reeves' inevitable tax hikes that will punish Britain's makers just to reward those who do not contribute.' The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has said that the signing 'sends a powerful signal that the UK is open for business and remains resolute in its commitment to free and fair trade'. Chief executive Rain Newton-Smith added: 'A trade agreement with India – one of the world's fastest-growing economies – is a springboard for long-term partnership and prosperity. UK firms can take advantage of this new platform to scale, diversify and compete on the global stage.' Elsewhere, Sir Keir is facing calls to raise the case of Jagtar Singh Johal, a British citizen who has been detained in India since 2017, when the Prime Minister meets Mr Modi. The Scottish Sikh is accused of being a member of the Khalistan Liberation Force, which is banned as a terror group in India. His family say he is being arbitrarily detained, with his brother Gurpreet Singh Johal insisting the matter should be 'high on the agenda when the prime ministers meet'.
