12 hours ago
‘JLR cars to be produced at Chennai plant from early 2026'
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) cars will be produced from Chennai starting early next year for the Indian market and the plant will be fully operational by 2032, P.B. Balaji, Group CFO, Tata Motors said on Tuesday.
'As far as the Chennai plant is concerned, for JLR, we will be starting with the CKD operations and they will start from early next year and thereafter what else gets localized there,' he said while speaking at the Tata Motors Media Day in Mumbai.
He said today JLR has CKD operations in Pune and over a period of time it will probably get migrate to Chennai.
'Do remember it is also a Tata Motors plant and once they [the passenger car division] steps up volume, they will require manufacturing capacity. So, that will also be in this particular location as well,' he said.
'So, all the options are there in front of us to decide what is the best way to put the Chennai plant together. And that is the reason it needs to get industrialized before 2032. And there is a lot of time available before you can get it fully tipped up,' Mr Balaji added.
Mr. Balaji said that the tariff imposed by the U.S. would impact JLR's business and the company's EBITDA would drop to about 5% to 7% from the earlier projected 10%. He said once demand improves in 12 to 18 months EBITDA would rise to 10%.
'We are confident of turnaround and will deal with near term challenges,' he added.
Shailesh Chandra, MD, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Ltd. said the company had committed an investment of ₹33,000 to Rs 35,000 crore in the next five years with an ambition to capture 18% to 20% market share by 2030.
He said the total product portfolio will increase from 8 currently to 15 and more focus would be given on high end SUVs.
'As far as technology future is concerned we will have high focus on ensuring that we are ahead of the curve. Software defined vehicle is one of the key focal point,' he said.
'We are investing in technologies and architecture to make our products so relevant and differentiated for the future. And at the same time, we are focusing on ensuring the network readiness for capacity and capability,' he added.
According to Mr. Balaji the demerger of the Commercial Vehicles business and Passengers Vehicles was on track and it would be fully complete by November or December this year.
