Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) will spend half a billion pounds upgrading a factory for electric vehicle production, it has been announced.
The manufacturer said the investment would transform its historic Halewood facility on Merseyside to support the production of electric vehicles, alongside existing combustion and hybrid models.
The move is part of a £15bn global investment by the car giant in electric vehicles announced in 2023 alongside plans in to produce the first emission-free model at Halewood in early 2025.
JLR said it had already spent £250m on new car production lines, machinery, people and digital technology at the Merseyside plant, with plans for £250m more over the coming years.
JLR has not announced which electric model would be manufactured at Halewood first.
However, the investment would allow the factory to produce electric versions of its Range Rover Evoque and Discovery Sport models alongside the existing combustion and hybrid versions, the company said.
JLR said the factory upgrades would include robots, a new body shop capable of producing 500 vehicle bodies per day and new ovens for drying paint.
The company, owned by India’s Tata Motors, said it was also investing a total of £18bn in its reimagine programme, which aimed to have all its vehicles electric-only by 2030.
Barbara Bergmeier, executive director of industrial operations, said Halewood would be the company’s first “all-electric production facility”.
She added the site had been the “heart and soul of JLR in the north-west of England for well over two decades”.