Tata Motors will manufacture Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) luxury cars at a $1 billion plant that it is planning to build in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, sources said. The plan would mark the first time that JLR-branded cars would be manufactured from scratch in India. The cars would be sold domestically and also exported, according to one of the sources.
Tata Motors, which acquired JLR in 2008, declined to comment on what it called speculation. It announced plans for the Tamil Nadu plant in March but did not disclose what vehicles would be manufactured there or the plant’s intended production capacity. JLR has three car factories in Britain and also builds cars in China, Brazil and Slovakia.
In India, where it sells cars such as the Range Rover Evoque, Discovery Sport and Jaguar F-Pace, it is still very much a niche brand. The models that are sold in India are exported from Britain as fully built vehicles or in parts that are then assembled at a plant near Pune city. JLR contributes about two thirds of Tata Motors’ revenue and in the financial year ended March 2023, the Indian company reported its first annual profit in five years.
