Chery's fading Jaguar Land Rover joint venture will flourish in the coming years thanks to the new Freelander brand, under which several electric models will be produced on the platform Chery.
The Freelander crossover appeared in the Land Rover model line in 1997, the second generation (in the title photo) debuted in 2006 and was produced until 2015 inclusive, it was replaced by the now living compact crossover Discovery Sport, and the Freelander name went into the archives. Today, the JLR press service officially announced that Freelander is returning as an independent brand, licensed to the equal joint venture Chery Jaguar Land Rover (CJLR).
CJLR was founded in 2012, the plant in Changshu, Jiangsu Province opened in 2014 and began assembling the compact crossover Range Rover Evoque for the Chinese market, later Land Rover Discovery Sport and extended sedans Jaguar XF and Jaguar XE. In 2017, CJLR localized production of 2.0-liter gasoline engines of the Ingenium family.
The first generation Range Rover Evoque, produced at the CJLR plant in Changsha
CJLR is currently underutilized because demand for localized Jaguar and Land Rover models is falling: the Jaguar brand, according to CAAM, sold 6,984 locally assembled vehicles in China in the first five months of this year (-15.6% compared to sales in January-May 2023), Land Rover fell by 14.1% and sold 11,178 cars produced in Changsha.
There are both subjective and objective reasons for the drop in sales. The objective ones are the slow renewal of the Jaguar and Land Rover model ranges and prices that are too high compared to Chinese analogues, while the subjective ones are the upheavals within JLR. Let us recall that the British company, owned by the Indian Tata Motors, decided last year to split the Land Rover brand into three separate brands — Range Rover, Discovery and Defender, and the Jaguar brand is now in a state of complete reboot: it is parting with the old model range and preparing to move into the luxury segment, where it will offer exclusively electric vehicles.
The information that JLR will switch to Chery platforms in China was published by Chinese media, including the English-language resource carnewschina.com, last week, but then we did not find official confirmation of it. Today such confirmation appeared and it became clear in which direction the cooperation between JLR and Chery will develop, namely, the return of Freelander was announced as the fifth JLR brand after Jaguar, Range Rover, Discovery and Defender.
Official press The release reports that under the Freelander brand, the Changsha plant will produce several electric models on the Chery platform, they will be aimed primarily at the Chinese market, but will eventually expand to the global one. The Freelander brand will have its own dealer network. There are no dates or technical details in the press release.
The resource carnewschina claims that Chery has matched the Freelander brand with the M3X and E0X platforms. Information regarding the M3X platform is questionable, since this platform is intended only for “hydrocarbon” models (including hybrid ones), but the E0X platform is predominantly electric, although it allows the creation of hybrid models of the range extender type, which have internal combustion engines. is not mechanically connected to the wheels and is used as an electric range extender (a recent example is the large Exeed Exlantix ET crossover).
We add that European automakers are increasingly borrowing Chinese platforms and Chinese technologies, since they are newer, cheaper and more efficient than our own, especially in relation to the Chinese market. The Volkswagen concern is preparing new products on the SAIC and Xpeng platforms, the Stellantis corporation has taken the Chinese startup Leapmotor under its wing, the Mercedes-Benz company has pledged the smart brand to Geely, Renault will develop the new Twingo with the help of a Chinese partner.