Efforts so far have shown success, but CEO says work still ongoing
JLR CEO previously said reliability costing 100,000 sales
The head of Jaguar Land Rover says the company’s efforts to improve quality are working. Warranty costs are down massively from last year. And the company isn’t done, planning to improve its reputation even more.
“This is the first pillar of Reimagine, our transformation plan,” CEO Thierry Bolloré told Autocar. “Our results have been unacceptable, but we know how to fix them. It’s not science, just hard work. Already the 2021 results are better, but we have more to do.”
While the company’s models have been plagued by reliability issues, like finishing last in the UK’s What Car? reliability survey, Bolloré believes things are improving. Which is much better than his attitude this spring, when he said that the brand was losing more than 100,000 sales because of customer dissatisfaction.
JLR now has a new board member responsible for the “whole value chain,” Bolloré said, adding that that “makes a big difference.”
Warranty costs from 2021 model year cars have dropped by a third, says the report, and the company is working on improving its processes and even the way it develops vehicles. That means more technology and more digital design on shared systems. Which should improve quality and integration right from the start.
It’s important as the new CEO has already said he plans for Jaguar to be an even more upscale automaker, aimed at Bentley rather than BMW. Jaguar is also planning to go entirely electric from 2025, which has meant ditching designs that were already close to production-ready. Land Rover will also be moving electric, though over a slower timeline.
