Currently reading: Jaguar Land Rover to open factory in Brazil
JLR reveals plans for a new production plant in Brazil, following similar announcements from Audi and Mercedes

Jaguar Land Rover will open a new production plant in Brazil at a cost of £240 million.

The new plant, which has already been signed off by Brazilian authorities, will have an annual production capacity of 24,000 vehicles and will intially create 400 jobs in the area.

Construction on the new site will begin in the middle of next year, with the first vehicles expected to roll off the production line from 2016. JLR has confirmed the vehicles produced at the plant will primarily be aimed at the Brazilian market.

It is not yet known which vehicles will be made at the factory, though models such as the Land Rover Freelander replacement are hotly tipped to be among them.

JLR says creating the new plant is part of its plan to "increase [our] global manufacturing footprint and create additional capacity".

CEO of the company Dr Ralf Speth said: "Brazil and the surrounding regions are very important. Customers there have an increasing appetite for highly capable premium products.

“This new programme will enable us to bring exciting new vehicles to them, with outstanding British design and engineering, creating a world-class Jaguar Land Rover facility incorporating leading premium manufacturing technologies.

The company currently has 35 dealers in Brazil, but has plans to expand over the next year. It's best-selling models in the country include the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery.

Earlier this year a job advertisement appeared in the country for a plant quality manager. At the time, the company only confirmed it was having "very intensive discussions" with the Brazilian government.

Unlike JLR’s planned Chinese factory, the company does not need a local partner in order to start manufacturing cars. Speth has been quoted as saying that any factory would begin by assembly vehicles supplied as kits from the UK.

JLR is hot on the heels of Audi and Mercedes; both companies have recently announced plans to open factories in Brazil.

Hilton Holloway & Darren Moss

Join the debate

Comments
6
Add a comment…
Mark Rodriguez 6 December 2013

A waste of money

it's going to be waste of £240 million for Jaguar Land Rover as they'll be lucky to sell 5000 more units in Brazil even after their production hike. Let's face it, their cars have a rather cruddy image outside the UK with a reputation for dreadful quality and reliability. Look at the international IQS surveys of 2009 for instance where they were placed near the bottom.
marker 6 December 2013

Old prejudices die hard

Oh dear, forced to refer to a survey from nearly five years ago to make your 'bash-JLR' point. I think you should credit their accountants and business/marketing analysts with a little bit more knowledge of the likely market opportunity than you evidently have...
marker 6 December 2013

Pictures of 'Freelander Replacement' AREN'T !

I don't think this is the new Freelander/Discovery at all - given JLR are creating three separate 'pillars' of models with increasing differentiation, this car has none of the traditional LR styling cues e.g. step-raised roof line, body-colour pillar behind rear doors etc. Unless it is nothing more than a test-mule based on a cobbled Evoque (in which case no hints of the car's final appearance can be gleaned from these pics), it's surely a Range Rover product - look at all the stock RR design and styling cues e.g. front / rear lights, tailgate form, bumpers etc. It looks like bigger than Evoque, smaller than RRS and certainly in styling and proportion terms is 'Evoque-meets-RRS' so I think you've unwittingly captured here the much talked-about 'Evoque XL'. So well done on your Range Rover scoop ! △ ▽
March1 5 December 2013

There already

Land Rover already (certainly used to) produce Defenders and Freelanders from CDKs in Brazil, so this isn't much of a step on from there. In fact they were supposed to have started manufacture of models there last year but this got pushed back due to local politics.