Chery Jaguar Land Rover makes plans to shake up luxury car market

British premium carmaker Jaguar Land Rover and its Chinese joint venture with Chery Automobile plan to launch many high-quality products, in efforts to lead the upgrade of China's luxury car market.

A joint brand day of Jaguar Land Rover China and Chery Jaguar Land Rover was launched in Chengdu, Sichuan province, early this month where some updated models were unveiled.

The new Jaguar XEL made its debut in Chengdu with a new interior, upgraded materials and technologies. The Jaguar F-Pace Checkered Flag and F-Pace 300 Sport, Range Rover 50th Anniversary edition and Range Rover Sport SVR of the British premium carmaker's luxury sub-brand Special Vehicle Operations were also showcased.

In August, Jaguar Land Rover exceeded the monthly sales target with an increase of 17 percent year-on-year. The figure was 40 percent in July.

Pan Qing, a board member of Jaguar Land Rover and executive director of Jaguar Land Rover China said: "By the end of 2021, Jaguar Land Rover will launch 30 new and updated models in China to provide more exciting experiences and services for customers in the world's largest auto market."

In an interview at the auto show, Murray Dietsch, president of Chery Jaguar Land Rover, said that the joint venture is always listening to voices in the Chinese market and customers. It is also doing lots of research to learn about policies and market trends, which helps to integrate localized voices with global system strength.

An example is that WeChat, a part of Chinese customers' daily lives but little-known in other countries, must be integrated with vehicle information systems, Dietsch added.

Chery Jaguar Land Rover has operated its world-leading intelligent manufacturing system and produced localized products in its Changshu plant, Jiangsu province.

The plant is a model of Jaguar Land Rover operations worldwide. It ranks top in terms of interaction technology, efficiency, quality and operation management, according to Chris Chen, vice-president of Chery Jaguar Land Rover.

The plant has two phases in operation, which can produce 200,000 vehicles annually. It can also handle more than 300,000 individual options to meet customers' requirements.

One of the highlights is that the Changshu plant has introduced Jaguar Land Rover's world-leading aluminum technology. It is China's first purpose-built aluminum body shop.

An aluminum body can provide a lighter and stronger solution with the advantages of fuel saving and flexible control performance, said Chen.

"To bring the all-aluminum body to China, we brought the requirements of the aluminum supply chain to the country and drove a large number of suppliers, which also contributes a lot to China's auto industry," he added.

The aluminum body workshop has 344 robots, 232 among which are self-piercing, riveting robots.

The welding workshop can finish one car body in two minutes and has introduced laser as well as radar-based tools to ensure precision in production.

The assembly workshop has adopted an advanced pick-to-voice system, which guides workers to sort materials via voice control.

The system has helped improve material sorting efficiency by 20 percent.

To deliver a solution that is flexible, more efficient and electric-ready, the plant uses Premium Transverse Architecture, or PTA, which is the latest manufacturing platform independently developed by Jaguar Land Rover.

The internet of things has been widely applied in the plant. The advanced radio frequency identification system, or RFID, is used in welding, painting, assembly and logistics processes, to ensure traceability of production and quality control.

"We also have built a quality management system that covers procedures from planning to the process of supervision and post-sale feedback to solve and prevent potential quality problems," Chen said.

The Changshu plant is also home to Jaguar Land Rover's only engine plant outside the United Kingdom. The plant produces the family of its Ingenium engines, including the Ingenium 2.0-liter four-cylinder engines for localized models, which boast outstanding performance and good fuel economy.

The facility set a record when its engine plant started production within 32 months of vehicle production on the same site.

The company said that the third phase of the plant is on schedule, which will improve the production and R&D capacity.

Last December, Chery Jaguar Land Rover unveiled its Design Studio in Shanghai to better learn about and reflect the voice of China in its product design.

In the future, the studio will design models especially for China auto market, which is an important part of the company's strategy plan.

caoyingying@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/16/2019 page19)