Adrian Mardell, Chief Financial Officer at Jaguar Land Rover, has admitted that the company ditched its plans to design electric cars based on the apparently subpar Modular Longitudal Architecture (MLA).
The platform had been designed as a versatile starting point for all kinds of powertrains including ICE, hybrid and all-electric. The British automotive corporation had planned to switch most of its Jaguar and Land Rover-badged vehicles to the MLA chassis and tech, reserving the BMW-made UKL platform for only the most compact and affordable front-wheel-drive models.
Things changed two weeks ago, when Jaguar suddenly said it would electrify its lineup completely by 2025. Land Rover added that it would have designed six new EV models by the same year. It was also hinted that the purported electric flagship – the Jaguar XJ – would never make it to the market.
As it turns out now, however, the XJ will not be the only model to get the axe. The large J-Pace SUV and the off-roader provisionally known as the Road Rover will also be shelved.
JLR explains that MLA is insufficiently good for pure EVs, but good enough to build the next-gen Range Rover and Range Rover Sport on it.
Both the Land Rover Discovery Sport and the Range Rover Evoque will switch to a different platform called EMA (Electrical Modular Architecture) by 2025. This one is reported to be a much better fit for electric cars and a passable one for hybrids with IC engines. Other than that, though, Jaguar is currently looking for new partners to develop EVs with.