JLR Launches Jaguar XE Output at Historic U.K. Plant

Jaguar Land Rover’s historic Solihull plant begins production of the new Jaguar XE at the U.K. site that for 70 years has been the home of the Land Rover.

The West Midlands plant, 115 miles (185 km) northwest of London, is building the all-new XE with the official opening of what the automaker calls its new, £500 million ($733.7 million) factory within a factory.

The XE is being built in a 1.78 million-sq.-ft. (165,000-sq.-m) state-of-the-art facility, including Europe’s largest aluminum body shop.

The car represents the culmination of more than £2 billion ($2.9 billion) of product, infrastructure and technology investment. It is an important addition to the British automotive-supply chain because of an additional £4 billion ($5.8 billion) worth of contracts committed to 55 U.K.-based Tier 1 suppliers. These suppliers provide 55% of the new model’s components.

Jaguar Land Rover purchasing director Ian Harnett says the company is a U.K. success story because it has been able to support a growing, high-tech, highly skilled supply base in the region.

“With each successive new or upgraded model, we are seeing the positive impact felt amongst the entire automotive sector,” Harnett says in a statement.

For Land Rover, welcoming the Jaguar brand to its home is the latest in a string of key developments which have seen the site undergo a spectacular transformation in just five years. In this period, Solihull production has almost tripled and the workforce has doubled.

The plant, with a workforce of 9,000, operates 24 hours on three shifts.

The opening of the new body shop and trim and final facilities represents the largest single investment in Solihull’s 70-year history.

Operations Director Alan Volkaerts says the arrival of the XE showcases the plant’s flexibility thanks to a £1.5 billion ($2.2 billion) investment in a technically advanced aluminum-vehicle architecture.

The start of XE production is the first step in making Solihull a dual-branded manufacturing operation. Earlier this year, JLR confirmed its breakthrough Jaguar performance CUV, the F-Pace, is to be built at the site.