Next-gen SUV pair will move upmarket with a tech-rich EV-focused platform in 2024.
Land Rover has drawn up plans to revolutionise the next-generation Evoque and Discovery Sport by building them on an all-new EV-focused platform with a petrol-fuelled range-extender unit.
Called the Electrified Modular Architecture (EMA), the new platform will be designed from the outset to accommodate advanced driver assistance systems and extensive cloud connectivity.
The EMA’s inherent simplicity should also address Jaguar Land Rover’s problems with quality, which, JLR boss Thierry Bolloré admitted recently, might be costing the company “100,000 sales per year”.
The huge EMA project will be part of a $18 billion investment programme running until 2026. JLR’s wider plans include the launches of the all-new Range Rover Sport 3, Velar 2 and Discovery 6 models, all based on the upcoming MLA platform. The Discovery 6 is now expected to be built at Solihull, rather than in Slovakia, after the Jaguar F-Pace is phased out completely to make way for that brand’s all-electric next-generation line-up.
The EMA is hugely important to JLR’s future prospects and its aim to become consistently profit-making. Indeed, JLR estimates that EMA-based vehicles will account for half of all company sales by 2030 and potentially 325,000 high-profit models annually.
As we understand, the first EMA-based new car will be the next Evoque, launched in 2024 and followed quickly by the third-generation Discovery Sport. It’s expected that the EMA production line will be installed at the company’s Halewood plant.
However, Land Rover has already revealed to investors that there will be two more Defender family models launched over the next six years. JLR has not released any details about the two new Defender models, although one is expected to be a pure EV and neither will be based on the D7x platform used by the current, L663-generation Defender.
The upshot is that both are expected to be based on the EMA, so it’s possible that JLR’s plant in Slovakia could also receive an EMA production line to enable it to build the new generation of vehicles for the European Union market.
We also understand that the EMA-based models will make a tangible move upmarket. According to details revealed to investors, JLR says its future models – starting with the MLA-based Range Rover next year – will be pitched firmly in the most profitable market sectors.
Specifically, this is likely to mean that the new Discovery Sport and Evoque will be given higher entry pricing, partly due to the extra development and construction costs of a substantially electrified platform. Expect a late 2024 arrival and around 100km electric driving range from PHEV drivetrain.
By 2030, JLR says it expects EMA-based vehicles to account for nearly 50% of all its sales (equivalent to 340,000 cars) and MLA-based vehicles around 40%. Jaguar EVs are pencilled in for a modest 12%.
Hilton Holloway