Jaguar Land Rover group has opened a £500 million worth engine manufacturing facility in Wolverhampton, West Midlands. The Queen of Great Britain has officially opened the plant. This plant will be used to exclusively manufacture JLR’s most efficient Ingenium engine range which is planned to be used in new Land Rover Defender 2016 and Jaguar XE models. The all new manufacturing facility has three production lines and almost 150 machines to take part in the manufacturing process.
For the first time, Ingenium engines were used in Land Rover Discovery Sport and Jaguar XE which is a strong rival to BMW 3-Series. It is expected that these engines will one day serve the entire JLR model line.
The Queen attended the opening ceremony of the new JLR plant where its boss Ralf Speth said that the engine manufacturing facility represents the great British engineering. It will employ about 1400 dedicated staff who will help JLR to further build their corporate social image and new engines for the entire JLR model range. Apart from these 1400 staff, JLR engine plant will create extra 5500 jobs in UK.
The engine plant was first announced to be built back in 2011 with a cost of £500 million. JLR said that the investment is very significant for the group and Ingenium engines will give an oomph to the business with lower weight assemblies and improved performance. It has reduced carbon emissions with the fixed engine size.
The engine to be manufactured at the new plant is 2.0 litre turbocharged diesel engine. This engine will be capable of generating 161bhp and 280 lbft however its second version will produce 178bhp and 317 lbft of torque. It will be used in the Jaguar XE. The first model of that will roll of the assembly line with these engines will be in May 2015.
