Jaguar Land Rover has become UK's largest car maker, beating long-time industry leader Nissan to second place, building 489,923 cars in the UK in 2015 compared to the Japanese automotive giant's 476,589.
“Britain is the beating heart of our business, so becoming the country's largest vehicle manufacturer is a remarkable achievement, demonstrating our steadfast commitment to the UK manufacturing sector,” said Wolfgang Stadler, JLR's executive director of manufacturing. “Year 2015 was a challenging one for the industry against a backdrop of socio economic instability, but it is a testament to our strong product range and dedicated team of employees that JLR has delivered year-on-year growth, with more exciting products come,” he said.
Last year the company bought 11 new and refreshed cars to market, including the Jaguar XE and XF and the Halewood-built Land Rover Discovery Sport. The company also invested 1 billion pounds in a state engine manufacturing centre in Wolverhampton to build the high technology, low emission Ingenium engine. Together, these facilities have created more than 10,000 manufacturing jobs in five years, with the overall UK workforce more than doubling to 35,000. The turnaround came under the Tata Group, which had acquired the struggling brands from Ford in 2008 in a USD 2.3 billion deal, which was called “an expensive mistake” by many analysts at the time.
Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, said, “Despite export challenges in some key markets such as Russia and China, foreign demand for British-built cars has been strong, reaching record export levels in the past year.”
