Jaguar cars to become all-electric from 2025

JLR to spend $3.5 bn annually on electrification

Tata Motors-owned British luxury car maker Jaguar Land Rover, or JLR, plans to make its coveted Jaguar brand to be an 'all-electric luxury brand' to rival Tesla from 2025.

The move will see Jaguar completely axe the petrol engines that made its name within the next four years.

JLR will invest about 2.5 billion pounds ($3.5 billion) annually into electrification and related connected technologies, the company said on Monday.

It plans to introduce six fully electric Land Rover variants in the next five years and aims to electrify all its models by 2030, it said.

JLR’s new chief exectutive officer Thierry Bollore made the announcement on Monday, with the new 'Reimagine' strategy also committing to retaining its production facilities in the UK. Bollore said Land Rover will phase out diesel engines from 2026 and invest more heavily in hydrogen fuel cell technology.

JLR said it will have prototypes using hydrogen fuel cells on Britain’s roads within the next year, as part of a long-range investment plan.

JLR has introduced plugin hybrid variants of models, including the Range Rover Sport and new Defender, but its only fully electric vehicle is the IPace SUV, which it started selling in 2018.

Car companies the world over are following zeroemission strategies to meet tough carbon dioxide emission targets in Europe and China.

Jaguar Land Rover is one of the hardest hit by the downturn in demand for

diesel years.

Its range of models across both brands relied heavily on diesel engines, which have seen sales tumble in the years since the German Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal rattled

vehicles

in

recent the industry in 2015.

Ballore was drafted into JLR last July.

JLR said it was a “on a path towards” a doubledigit operating profit and positive cash flow, and aims to achieve positive cash without debt by 2025.