Jaguar Land Rover executives are considering purchasing a luxury car brand to bolster the group’s reach in an increasingly competitive market.
According to reports on Bloomberg, the Coventry car maker has financial support from parent company Tata to acquire another high-end manufacturer. Autocar contacted JLR for comment but it has yet to issue an official response.
Unnamed sources told Bloomberg that a new brand joining Jaguar and Land Rover would likely already have invested in electrification and autonomous driving systems, which will become significantly more important for the group after 2020.
JLR has pledged to electrify every model in its range from the start of the next decade and it has been working with San Francisco-based Lyft by investing in driverless technology in an attempt to increase its expertise.
As part of an aggressive push to boost global sales, JLR has launched several new models that are based on a small number of platforms. The Velar is the latest product to spawn from this system, with the Audi Q5 rival sharing much of its structure and underpinnings with the Jaguar F-Pace.
Through increasing Tata investment, JLR is increasing its production capacity to meet demand. It opened a plant in China earlier this year, with another due to be completed in Slovakia next year.
JLR is officially the UK’s biggest car manufacturer, topping the second-biggest producer, Nissan, with 544,401 units produced last year compared with the Japanese brand’s 507,430.