Tata Motors-owned JLR, BMW join hands to develop next-gen electric vehicles

Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover on Wednesday announced that it has joined hands with BMW to develop next-generation electric drive systems. The two partners will invest jointly in research and development, engineering and procurement with an aim to provide the necessary economies of scale to support increased consumer adoption of electric vehicles, Jaguar Land Rover said in a statement. It added that the collaboration between the leading automakers seeks to advance the development of electrification technology to support transition autonomous, connected, electric, shared (ACES) future.

The strategic collaboration will build on the considerable knowledge and expertise in electrification at both the companies. "We've proven we can build world-beating electric cars but now we need to scale the technology to support the next generation of Jaguar and Land Rover products. It was clear from discussions with BMW Group that both companies' requirements for next-generation EDUs (electric drive units) to support this transition have significant overlap making for a mutually beneficial collaboration," JLR Engineering Director Nick Rogers said.

Both the automakers have demonstrated their capability in the electric vehicle segment in the past. While JLR has premium battery-electric SUV Jaguar I-PACE, as well as plug-in hybrid models, BMW Group has vast experience of developing and producing several generations of electric drive units in-house since it launched the BMW i3 in 2013.

The statement further said that the partnership would allow both the to take advantage of efficiencies arising from shared research and development and production planning as well as economies of scale from joint procurement across the supply chain. As part of the agreement, a team of JLR and BMW Group experts will engineer the EDUs with both partners developing the systems to deliver the specific characteristics required for their respective range of product. However, these EDUs will be manufactured by each partner in their own production facilities.

JLR would be manufacturing these EDUs at its Wolverhampton-based Engine Manufacturing Centre (EMC), which was confirmed as the home for the company's global EDU production in January of this year. The plant employs 1,600 people and will be the centre of propulsion system manufacturing, offering full flexibility between clean Ingenium petrol and diesel engines and electric units.