Jaguar Land Rover has opened a ‘Future Energy Lab’ in the UK
More than 200 e-car engineers already work at the facility, and another 150 jobs are to be created. According to the company, it has invested 250 million pounds in the facility, which is currently around 287 million euros.
The 30,000-square-metre facility not only houses offices for the engineers, but also a workshop for prototype production of the newly developed Electric Drive Units (EDU) and also a number of test benches for direct testing of the new developments. These include electrical test benches for functional tests, but also a series of extreme weather climate chambers in which conditions between -40 and +55 degrees Celsius can be simulated.
The “Future Energy Lab” is not only part of JLR’s billion-dollar investment in the electrification of its luxury brands, but is also intended to contribute directly to sustainability in development: the drive units can be tested directly on site under a wide range of conditions. This means that the prototypes no longer have to be sent around the world to validate smaller development steps. This not only saves emissions, but also costs.
“Our vehicles are, and continue to be, at the forefront of an all-electric automotive future,” says Thomas Müller, JLR’s Chief Product Development Officer. “This facility, a core component of our Reimagine strategy, is essential to providing the advanced testing capabilities that will be vital to the performance and reliability of the modern luxury vehicles we are proudly developing.”
JLR plans to introduce nine all-electric models by 2030 – under the Jaguar, Range Rover, Defender and Discovery brands. Since Jaguar Land Rover was renamed JLR, Land Rover is no longer used as a brand name. Instead, the familiar model names have become brands in the new “House of Brands”. The next model is to be an all-electric Range Rover.
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