The Land Rover Defender has been in high-demand since it was launched last year but the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t helped with the British marque’s attempt to keep up, a new report suggests. Speaking to investors at the company’s latest quarterly earnings announcement, Jaguar Land Rover chief financial officer Adrian Mardell revealed that the Defender waiting period is almost 12 months long.
As reported by Automotive News Europe, “It’s the result of the supply side,” Mardell said, citing the semiconductor shortage caused by the ongoing pandemic and issues around manufacturing plug-in hybrids. “Expect those order books to normalise in six, nine- or 12-months’ time,”
Most of the backed-up orders were from consumers in mainland Europe and the company’s UK home market, Mardell added.
“We won’t yet know the scale of impact from the semiconductor challenges. The order bank for the Defender is now above 20 000 and retail sales for the vehicle are approaching 7000 a month, which is up from the predicted 5 000 units,” Mardell reported.
The order bank when the Defender first went on sale in April last year stood around 8 000, according to Land Rover’s official figures. The company has sold 45 244 Defenders within the current financial year.
JLR CEO Thierry Bollore added the company lost production of 7 000 units because of the semiconductor shortage but gave no guidance on how the shortage would affect production for the next financial year.
Orders for JLR’s plug-in hybrids in particular, are especially backed up as customers in Europe seek to take advantage of lower tax impacts due to the electrified drivetrain’s lower CO2 emissions.
“There is particular emphasis on plug-in hybrids. They have had a dramatic impact on our market,” Mardell explained. “Some of those have a 12-month waiting list so clearly those customers are going to have to be super patient with us.”
Mardell did not expand on the plug-in hybrid production issues, but the company confirmed that it had paused sales of its Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery Sport P300e plug-in models last October over issues with their stated CO2 output.
Sales of plug-in hybrid models reached 7,3 per cent of total JLR sales globally in the quarter, compared to 4,6 per cent for company’s full financial year. Sales of the full-electric Jaguar I-Pace accounted for 1,8 per cent of sales in the quarter.
Looking forward, the company has slimmed its volume ambitions under new CEO Thierry Bollore. This includes the decision to turn Jaguar into an EV-only brand from 2025 and backing away from its one-million annual target.
