Jaguar Land Rover to retrain global engineering, servicing and retail staff as electrification dawns.
JLR has announced plans to train 29,000 global staff in skills critical to supporting electrification, including engineering and servicing.
The British car maker aims to train 11,450 technicians across the 1300 JLR franchises worldwide in a bid to close the skill gap on servicing electric cars.
In 2023, the company will hire some 1200 apprentices, with a further 3400 to follow over the next three years.
Barbara Bergmeier, JLR’s industrial operations executive director, said: “Our plans to electrify our product portfolio are running at pace, and we’re rapidly scaling up our future skills training programme to ensure we have the right talent to deliver the world’s most desirable modern luxury electric vehicles.
“Developing the skilled global workforces needed to design, build and maintain the vehicles of the future is foundational. I’m proud to say we’re committing to help plug the electric and digital skills gap with a comprehensive, global training programme, which will powercharge electrification both here in the UK and abroad.”
Engineers in areas not conducive to electrification – such as ICE powertrains – will be redeployed. For example, Karl Gunnarsson, a former JLR emissions specialist who previously developed catalytic converters, now works on the battery-cell team.
Alongside the recent news that JLR has begun working on converting its Halewood plant to produce EVs from 2024 (likely Land Rover Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque successors), this represents an acceleration of the British firm’s preparation efforts for electrification.
Land Rover plans to launch six new electric models from 2024, including a variant of the Range Rover.
As for Jaguar, Automotive Daily Network partner Autocar previously reported that it will be relaunched in 2025 as a Bentley-rivalling EV marque manufacturing premium crossovers.
Charlie Martin