JLR clarifies summer shutdown will be shorter than normal

S Kalyana Ramanathan / London July 14, 2009

Jaguar Land Lover, the loss-wracked luxury car maker owned by Tata Motors, today clarified that the planned maintenance shutdown of its three units in the UK this summer will be for a shorter period than the usual annual shutdown.

In a statement correcting media stories that appeared on Sunday suggesting its plants would be shut for longer, a company spokersperson said, “The reality is that our annual summer shutdown begins at the end of next week (July 23) as scheduled and will last for two weeks, with the plants due to restart on August 10. This two-week break is actually a week shorter than the traditional three-week break our plants have previously had.”

This statement confirms that despite the fall in demand for cars globally, JLR is not planning to reduce its production to a level lower than what it is now.

JLR spokesperson added, “At Solihull, we have just reinstated the second shift as we build up production of the new 10MY Discovery, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover; at Castle Bromwich, with orders for XK and XF to fulfill, plus our work to finalise production of the new XJ; and at Halewood with Freelander and X-TYPE, we will not be extending the annual summer shutdown period.”

Annual shut down of plants for maintenance, ranging from a week to two weeks, is a regular and established practice among most car makers in the world and does not conclusively prove a production cut.

However, for the year ending March 2009, JLR had to make production cuts to adjust to the demand for its cars. The company had in March stated there had been a series of non-production days at all three of its UK assembly plants — Castle Bromwich and Solihull in the West Midlands and Halewood on Merseyside. Each plant lost an average of 25 days’ production, which equated to a volume reduction of approximately 25 per cent, month on month.