High hopes for new Range Rover as chip shortage zaps profits

Singapore

THE Range Rover has a reputation for being unstoppable in any terrain, but Jaguar Land Rover is counting on an all-new model to put it on a path to profitability.

Jaguar Land Rover unveiled the fifth-generation of a car that began life as luxury transport for wealthy landowners, ahead of this week's announcement that the ongoing shortage of semiconductors tipped the company into a loss of £302 million (S$556.2 million), for the quarter ending on Sept 30.

The company reported a profit of £65 million during the same period a year ago.

Despite the losses, Jaguar Land Rover said demand for its cars remains strong. Chief financial officer Adrian Mardell said order books are at "new record levels", with the company sitting on more than 125,000 unfulfilled sales.

The carmaker said the semiconductor shortage curtailed sales volumes in line with expectations, adding that it expects to see a "gradual recovery" next year. It said it would prioritise higher-margin vehicles to make better use of the available chip supply in the meantime.

One such model could be the new Range Rover, which Jaguar Land Rover will start shipping in 2022, with sales expected to begin in Singapore in the middle of the year.

Jaguar Land Rover has raised its starting price by more than 10 per cent in its home market, which could tip the asking price here close to the S$600,000 mark once local taxes are factored in.

Though it looks like a revamped version of the existing Range Rover, the car is a complete redesign built on an all-new platform that is more rigid than the one underpinning the current model.

It will come in two sizes, the larger of which is 20cm longer and offers seven seats for the first time.

Despite an increase in size overall from the current model, the new Range Rover will come with four wheel steering, which lets it make the tightest turns of any car in the Land Rover family.

In a nod to sustainability, an optional trim level called Vegan High Spec will come with seats covered in Kvadrat, an artificial leather that is 30 per cent lighter than the real thing, and only a quarter as carbon intensive to produce.

The major changes inside involve new digital features. The driver display is a 13.7-inch screen, while the infotainment system's touchscreen measures 13.1-inches diagonally, making it the largest one fitted to any Land Rover so far. The Range Rover comes with two SIM cards so it can receive over-the-air software updates without having to pause other functions that need data, such as music streaming. If silence is your thing, the car uses its cabin speakers to actively cancel noise, making it one of the quietest cars on the road, according to its maker.

Jaguar Land Rover announced a large lineup of engines for its new flagship, including petrol, diesel, mild hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains. The latter versions have enough battery capacity to cover up to 100km on a single charge in pure electric mode.

The engine options for Singapore have yet to be finalised, but with no real incentives for plug-in hybrids, and diesel facing something of a dead end, the most likely versions to appear here are the petrol ones.

Expect an entry-level variant in the form of the P360, which has a straight six-cylinder engine tuned for 360 horsepower, as well as a mild hybrid system to reduce fuel consumption. It accelerates to 100km/h in 6.3 seconds.

Drivers who want more excitement will eye the Range Rover P530, which has 530 hp from a twin-turbo, 4.4-litre V8 engine that BMW supplies to Jaguar Land Rover. The top-of-the-line version, it hits 100km/h in a sportscar-like 4.6 seconds.

Buyers keen to leave combustion behind altogether will have a full-electric version to buy in 2024. Demand for electric cars is still accelerating worldwide, but there has never been a battery-only Range Rover before. Of all the terrain Range Rovers are meant to tread, the world of electric vehicles could be the most promising.