UK’s luxury car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has unveiled plans to invest £65m ($81.10m) to enhance its special paint facilities globally.
This investment is aimed at meeting the “growing demand” for personalised luxury vehicles across its brands and slash the environmental impact of its carbon-intensive manufacturing.
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In the past financial year, JLR has observed a significant rise in client interest for custom colour options, with a more than twofold increase since FY22 for its Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models.
The investment will see the creation of new paint facilities in Castle Bromwich in West Midlands, England and Nitra, Slovakia.
These facilities are expected to increase JLR’s capacity for Bespoke Paint and luxury elevated palette options.
This expansion will allow over 17,000 additional client orders annually and make exclusive paint colours available across other JLR brands for the first time, the firm said.
JLR chief sustainability officer Andrea Debbane said: “JLR is seeing a significant increase in clients wanting to personalise their vehicles, so we are preparing to expand our facilities and offer thousands more paint options across our brands, but doing so in the most sustainable and efficient way possible.”
As part of a £41m investment in new Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) facilities at Castle Bromwich, £26m will be allocated to replace existing paint booths with advanced application booths, set to be installed in 2025.
The new booths will feature fully automated spray robots, which are expected to decrease paint waste by 30% compared to hand painting methods.
Furthermore, a £10m new universal paint line is underway at JLR’s Nitra facility in Slovakia, where the Defender and Discovery models are produced.
This line will include a new fully electric paint booth and curing ovens, aiming to reduce CO2e emissions by approximately 500mt annually.
The universal paint line will be equipped to offer unlimited colour variations, with the first vehicles anticipated to roll off the line in 2026.
In addition to the new facilities, JLR has introduced a Smart Oven control system and a new heat exchanger to improve the efficiency of existing operations.
The system can shut down automatically during inactivity, and the heat exchanger will recover heat from flue gas, potentially saving around 2,250mt of CO2e per year.
Earlier this month, JLR strengthened its partnership with Tata Communications to enhance its connected vehicle ecosystem via the Tata Communications MOVE platform.
