Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has revealed a £500 million investment to upgrade its historic Halewood facility, enabling the simultaneous production of electric vehicles alongside its current combustion and hybrid models.
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Originally built in 1963 to produce the Ford Anglia, Halewood is being transformed for the electric era.
With £250m already invested, the transformation so far has involved over one million hours of construction work over the past 12 months. The site has been extended by 32,364 sqm to produce JLR’s medium-sized electric luxury SUVs on the new Electric Modular Architecture (EMA) platform.
The historic plant has been fitted with technology including new EV build lines, 750 autonomous robots, ADAS calibration rigs, laser alignment technology for perfect part fitment and the latest cloud-based digital plant management systems to oversee production, creating the ‘factory of the future’.
This investment is part of JLR’s Reimagine strategy, which will see it electrify all its brands by 2030, with the aim of achieving carbon net zero across our supply chain, products, and operations by 2039.
Electrification is central to this strategy and Halewood has an exciting future producing ICE, PHEV and BEV models side by side before eventually becoming JLR’s first all-electric production facility.
Additional transformational work to accommodate different-sized electric vehicles includes:
- New body shop capable of producing 500 vehicle bodies per day
- 4km of the paint shop has been modified with the expansion of ovens and conveyors to respond to increased demand for contrasting roofs
- Construction of new automated painted body storage tower capable of storing 600 painted vehicle bodies
- Final production line has been increased in length from 4km to 6km to accommodate battery fitment
- Vehicle build stations extended to seven metres to facilitate the different proportions of the new EMA electric vehicles
- 40 New Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) introduced to assist employees with the fitment of high-voltage batteries
- Delivered High Voltage Training to over 1,600 employees
- £16m worth of viable equipment from JLR’s Castle Bromwich site, ranging from ABB robots to automated guided vehicles has been integrated for reuse at the new facility
