Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) India has announced its decision to dive into green mobility with the launch of a hybrid Land Rover model by end of 2019 and its electric vehicle I-Pace in the second half of 2020. The announcement has been expected for a while as JLR’s rivals also plan to enter the segment soon. Audi and Volvo have already made their EV announcements for India and Mercedes-Benz and BMW are also expected to follow in the coming years.
While JLR India hasn’t confirmed the hybrid model it’ll launch in 2019, we expect it could be the Range Rover Evoque hybrid or the Land Rover Discovery Sport hybrid. Both of these models are already quite popular in the Indian market and cost a lot less than the larger Discovery or the Range Rover.
Speaking of the announcement, Rohit Suri, President & Managing Director, Jaguar Land Rover India Ltd. (JLRIL) said, “Jaguar Land Rover’s focus is to commit itself to a more sustainable future and our engineers have developed just the right products to lead us on this path. The introduction of electrified vehicles in Jaguar Land Rover India’s portfolio is in line with the government’s thrust towards electric vehicles. The company is encouraged by the introduction of FAME-II by the Government of India and its focus on the expansion of the charging infrastructure in the country. This is bound to help with faster adoption of all kinds of Electric Vehicles in due course.”
The I-Pace is a Tesla-rivalling electric car and offers about 390 hp of power output along with a claimed range of more than 400 km. While the performance is sports car worthy and the range is enough to take care of most range anxiety situations, this car will sell in extremely limited numbers. Since such cars are already quite expensive and get even more expensive while being imported into India, the cost makes them beyond the reach of most people. That said, such models do act as great ambassadors for the changing preferences of car brands and also provide the company with crucial market data for future models.
