You saw the headline and we’re pretty sure some of you are shocked by it. It isn’t some report, either as it has been confirmed by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) themselves, too. For some its EV models at least, the company will be utilizing a premium platform from Chery.
How did this come to be? See, JLR has a joint venture with Chery to build cars in China. The law over there dictates that a foreign company might have a local Chinese partner in order to do business there, hence the partnership.
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JLR itself is a subsidiary of Tata Motors of India and has been since 2008. As for the JLR-Chery venture, that has been around since 2012. Regarding this new EV collaboration, JLR said, ‘The new model of collaboration leverages fully both parties' complementary strengths with Chery holding a leading automotive market position in China while JLR has unrivalled heritage and design strength – creating mutually beneficial prospects for the future.’
No, this doesn’t mean that the next-gen Range Rover or Defender will be a fancier Chery, so Rovernuts can breathe a sigh of relief. As mentioned, it’s for the EV and Extended Range EV models. JLR will also launch a new brand that results from this joint venture.
The new brand will be called Freelander, and for some, the name might sound familiar. The Freelander name was last used by Land Rover for a compact crossover SUV. The Land Rover Freelander was produced from 1997 to 2015 and spanned two generations. Its successor is the Land Rover Discovery Sport.
With that, it seems that Freelander is poised to be an entry-level brand for JLR’s ‘House of Brands’. One can think of it as a junior brand for Land Rover, although it is still unknown if Freelander will be an exclusive SUV-only marque or if it will include other body types.
What is sure is that it will be made in China. After all, this is a Chery-JLR collaboration. There are also plans of exporting Freelander models to other countries. That said, the looming tariffs in Europe might put a dent on those plans, but it remains to be seen what happens next.
