Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced the relaunch of the Freelander brand with a new range of electric vehicles. The announcement was made in China, where these vehicles will be manufactured and sold initially. The plan is to export them to other countries over time.
JLR and Chery have been working together for 12 years under the Chery Jaguar Land Rover (CJLR) joint venture. This JV currently produces the Land Rover Discovery Sport, Range Rover Evoque, Jaguar E-Pace and long-wheelbase versions of the XF and XE sedans for the Chinese market. The new electric Freelander models will be built on Chery's architecture.
"The new model of collaboration leverages fully both parties' complementary strengths," JLR said, "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."
These new models, sold under the Freelander brand, will be seen as "independent from both Chery’s existing portfolio and JLR’s modern luxury House of Brands". JLR will still launch Land Rover electric models for other global markets using the MLA and EMA modular platforms, while Jaguar will launch a new range of luxury electric vehicles using a dedicated JEA platform.
The Freelander electric cars are described as being designed for the "mainstream", and although they will initially be sold exclusively in China, JLR says they will "over time" be exported globally, without revealing details of planned markets or timelines.
Neither company has provided any technical details, but there are widespread reports in the Chinese media that the platforms will be shared with Chery's premium Exeed brand, which itself plans to enter the European market by 2026.
One of these will be the M3X platform, developed in partnership with Magna International. This design, used in the Exeed RX and Chery Fulwin T10 SUVs, can be powered by internal combustion engines or plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), but Freelander cars are expected to offer only the latter option.
The other architecture, known as E0X, is aimed at battery-electric all-electric vehicles as well as range extended vehicles. It is based on an 800-volt architecture with the option of front, rear or all-wheel drive.
Source: JLR
