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Range Rover, the original luxury SUV, has launched its first fully electric model, Range Rover Electric, built at JLR's Solihull manufacturing plant in the UK. The launch is underpinned by a large-scale transformation of the site and wider West Midlands footprint, including new battery and electric drive unit production lines and large-scale reskilling of the workforce for electrification.

That transformation extends across JLR's UK manufacturing base: at Solihull, 9,000 employees have been upskilled for electrification and a further 1,500 trained across the wider West Midlands footprint, while JLR's Electric Propulsion Manufacturing Centre in Wolverhampton now produces battery packs and electric drive units alongside internal combustion engines. Notably, Range Rover Electric is built on the same Solihull production line as its mild-hybrid, plug-in hybrid and combustion counterparts, with each vehicle manufactured to order – underlining JLR’s flexible propulsion strategy. More than two-thirds of Range Rover's supplier spend is directed to UK and European suppliers, reinforcing the brand's economic footprint at home.

Range Rover Electric marks a major milestone for the brand, seamlessly integrating electric propulsion into an architecture engineered for it from the outset. Twin permanent magnet motors deliver near-silent performance with V8 levels of power, while revolutionary traction management – reacting up to 100 times faster than a combustion-engine equivalent – ensures no compromise to Range Rover's signature all-terrain capability, including wading through 900mm of water.

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Motor
Transcript
00:00I'm Nigel Blenkinsop, we're in Final Assembly 3 at our Solihull Manufacturing Facility
00:04and I'm the Chief Operations Officer for JLR.
00:08So we're in our Solihull Manufacturing Centre in the West Midlands
00:12and we're really, really excited to be revealing the new Range Rover Electric Vehicle.
00:16Well, today we're in Final Assembly 3 at our Solihull Manufacturing Plant
00:20and it's a really exciting day for all of our employees here as we reveal the new Range Rover Electric.
00:26It's a really, really important product in the portfolio and we're very excited to take it to the market.
00:31It was really important to build the new Range Rover Electric here in Solihull in the UK
00:35because this is the home of Range Rover.
00:37We've got the expertise and the capability to deliver the industrialisation
00:41and the complexity of the product that's being implemented in this production facility
00:45and also the facility in Wolverhampton, which is the Electric Proportion Manufacturing Centre.
00:50Well, today's the end of a four-year journey in the development of the new Range Rover Electric.
00:57It's a really, really important day for the 10,500 employees here in Solihull
01:01and the wider employees in the West Midlands
01:04because it brings to fruition a long training, development and industrialisation process
01:09and we're super excited to bring the new product to the market.
01:13A flexible propulsion strategy is really, really important.
01:16Right now, we're not sure on the rate and change of demand from across our global customers and markets
01:23so it's really, really important that we can adjust and flex with the propulsion strategy that we've adopted
01:28to be able to supply the right products at the right rate to our customers.
01:33Range Rover is a really, really important product in the JLR portfolio
01:37but also for the British economy.
01:39We employ thousands of suppliers who support the delivery of products and components into the Range Rover
01:45and we're buying probably 50% to 60% of those components from UK suppliers and Europe.
01:52It drives huge value creation for the British economy.
01:56Well, today is a super exciting point in the journey of electrification for the JLR portfolio.
02:03It's the end of a four-year development journey
02:06but the start of a fantastic industrialisation and production journey for the new product.
02:10It is a little bit unusual to build the complexity of propulsion in one production system.
02:16However, to be able to manage the high expense of industrialisation,
02:21we've managed to integrate all of that complexity into one line
02:25and with the just-in-time delivery from our electric propulsion manufacturing centre in Wolverhampton,
02:30incorporate the new major units, which are battery, electric drive unit
02:35and battery energy management systems, delivered in sequence to this production facility
02:39and built back down the same line with the same employees who build the other Range Rovers.
02:44Range Rovers are hugely value creative products to the UK economy and to British industry.
02:52We source over 60% of our components from UK and European suppliers
02:57and it drives employment across a huge network of suppliers, over 2,000 suppliers,
03:03supplying components into this factory to build these amazing cars.

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