Carmarker Jaguar Land Rover said on Friday it planned to cut 1,000 jobs in the West Midlands after UK sales fell by more than a quarter in the first quarter of 2018, blaming uncertainty over Brexit and doubts over the future of diesel vehicles for the drop in consumer confidence.

The company plans to axe 1,000 temporary contract workers at its factory in Solihull, where Range Rover products and Jaguar’s SUVs are made — a tenth of the site’s 10,000-strong workforce. It said some employees at a second factory nearby would be moved to Solihull to help plug gaps left by the cuts.

In addition to a 26 per cent drop in UK sales, JLR saw European sales fall 16 per cent in the year to March. In the UK, new taxes will come into force in April to deter people from buying diesel vehicles, following revelations that the fuel is more environmentally harmful than the industry had claimed.

“In light of the continuing headwinds impacting the car industry, we are making some adjustments to our production schedules and the level of agency staff. We are however continuing to recruit large numbers of highly skilled engineers, graduates and apprentices as we over-proportionally invest in new products and technologies,” JLR said in a statement. 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

Haven't they just opened a new factory in Slovakia?

God help anyone getting the last Friday car as the shift is disbanded  FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43756202

Link to story, there is room to comment at end of BBC story.

My posted comment;

JLR gradually went further and further upmarket.
Although they probably made more profit per car, they forgot to produce the bread and butter cars like the Freelander. This has left the door open for other makes to develop the small to medium cars.
Hopefully the new Defender will fill this gap and once more be the everyman's 4x4.  FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
FL2 Metropolis SD4 Auto 2014 2017- (16k - 76k+ miles) (MY2015)

The anti diesel government strike again! Landrover - turning owners into mechanics since 1948

2014 Orkney grey Freelander SD4 GS.
2004 Zambezi silver Discovery 2 Td5 (Gone)
1963 Surf blue Morris Mini Minor Super de Luxe (my little toy)

JLR gradually went further and further upmarket.
Although they probably made more profit per car, they forgot to produce the bread and butter cars like the Freelander. This has left the door open for other makes to develop the small to medium cars.
Hopefully the new Defender will fill this gap and once more be the everyman's 4x4. [/quote]

I spot history repeating itself here. LR did well out of the Series vehicles, and the RR classic, but left the door wide open for smaller Japanese 4x4 - the Disco came late to the party, granted it did a good job, but now we have a lot of high end 4x4 with the competition cheaper and more reliable, granted less capable, but capable doesn't sell as well as cheap, and reliability / poor customer service is a real killer for reputations. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

IMO, these job losses have nothing to do with the 'diesel scandal', or Bexit ...... as muted by the media.

It's all to do with the type of vehicles they're now offering ...... road biased SUV's.

Solution:- sack McGovern and get back to the heritage that established the brand and recommence producing proper 4x4 vehicles! FL2 now gone and have a couple of items left for sale:-

Brodit active iPhone holder + Brodit dash clip,
Bluetooth Music Streaming Module.

Any solution that involves sacking McGovern must have some serious merit!

I love the older styling BUT McGovern has done nothing wrong. Yes he’s changed the line up drastically and they all look the same BUT they’ve been selling like hot cakes up until the Brexit/diesel scandal. Financially speaking he’s helped to turn the brand around.

Does anyone actually remember the days when Land Rover were struggling big time? Jaguar was making a loss with horrendous residual values. It was not so long ago that the government gave JLR a grant

Times were so bad once upon a time at Land Rover that when vehicles came in for a replacement part they were knowingly fitting a dodgy replacement part and hoping for the best. The company had very little money for development testing hence how the P38A and Freelander 1 were just made and thrown out for sale with minimal testing. During the BMW ownership, BMW claimed that the Rover Group cost them 1,000,000,000 in a single year!

Yes I miss the good old days too...hence why Im keeping onto my Freelander  MY14 Kahn Converted Dynamic - Fuji White Ebony/Pimento Interior
MY15 Xenon Headlight Conversion

MY17 RRS SVR - Estoril Blue Cirrus/Ebony 🪣💺’s

Last edited by LR NUT on 13th Apr 2018 11:22 pm. Edited 5 times in total

Tigger wrote:

Any solution that involves sacking McGovern must have some serious merit!

you’ve bought his finest creation  MY14 Kahn Converted Dynamic - Fuji White Ebony/Pimento Interior
MY15 Xenon Headlight Conversion

MY17 RRS SVR - Estoril Blue Cirrus/Ebony 🪣💺’s

Diesel/brexit is not the real reason for the drop in sales. Land Rover used to sell cars to people who were loyal to the brand at a price that middle earners could afford. Entry level ownership started around the £20k mark with haggling-it now starts at £30k+ A decent spec three year old Freelander 2 could be bought for £15k. The equivalent Discovery Sport is around £25k.

I have owned four Land Rovers' over the years and have enjoyed driving all of them. I was prepared to put up with dubious build quality, niggly faults and Land Rovers refusal to redesign known problem parts because the cars gave me exactly what I needed. The shift in emphasis from owners like myself towards middle class suburban families was always going to be problematic for Land Rover. This particular demographic are used to the German and Japanese people carriers which are relatively reliable, relatively economical and don't throw up the odd £1000 bill at 40,000 miles or less. They don't want or need the complexity of a Land Rover and the long term running costs associated with that complexity-they just want one because they look nice and their friends have got one. Land Rover has sadly become a fashion item. Like all fashion items, they have their moment and then people move onto the next best thing. By chasing the mass market, Land Rover has alienated it's core base of loyal owners by not offering them what they want at a price that is affordable to those who don't want HP/PCP, but actually want to own their car.

LR NUT wrote:

Tigger wrote:

Any solution that involves sacking McGovern must have some serious merit!

you’ve bought his finest creation

Funnily enough, I’m aware that McGovern was allowed access to his crayons, safety scissors and glue when the L405 was designed - it’s certainly not the best looking Range Rover ever built. But, it’s a lot better than some of the later designs under his leadership; I get the impression that the grown ups had yet to completely relinquished control

His characteristic, pseudo designer speak, nonsense interviews and even his bad taste in suits would come a little later...

Labradorslave wrote:

Land Rover has sadly become a fashion item. Like all fashion items, they have their moment and then people move onto the next best thing. By chasing the mass market, Land Rover has alienated it's core base of loyal owners by not offering them what they want at a price that is affordable to those who don't want HP/PCP, but actually want to own their car.

Considering that around 80% of all private purchases, across all manufacturers, are made via PCP plans, its a hard market to ignore. And for all those that want to pay cash, it gives a plentiful supply of, nicely depreciated, up to 3 year old examples to choose from

The JLR story is front page on the FT today and I found this comment on the FT online.

Quote:

This is nothing to do with Brexit. I was trying for months to get a 3.0 petrol Range Rover Sport. The delivery date was put back three times and in the end the sales person said he had no idea when I would actually get the car as they a) had completely underestimated demand and b) were prioritising exports because with the pound lower (less so now) they could sell the cars for far more overseas...

I gave up