Wholesale volumes down 9.2% and retail down 15.3%, but the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Defender range now accounts for over 80% of sales
JLR, the Coventry-headquartered carmaker behind Land Rover and Jaguar, has reported a fall in first-quarter sales, with the region’s Solihull plant central to how the company is weathering the storm.
Wholesale volumes for the three months to 30 June came in at 79,300 units, down 9.2% on the same quarter last year and down 16.8% on the previous quarter. Retail sales fared worse, down 15.3% year-on-year to 80,000 units.
Three major factors driving the issue
JLR pointed to three factors behind the dip: a fire at a major component supplier at the start of the quarter, market disruption linked to the conflict in the Middle East, and the planned wind-down of outgoing Jaguar models ahead of the launch of the all-electric Jaguar Type 01.
Historical locally
That last point carries a distinctly local story. Jaguar has not built a car at its historic Solihull plant since the last F-Pace, a black V8 SVR, rolled off the line on 19 December 2025, marking the end of Jaguar’s combustion-engine era at the site. Solihull, long one of the region’s biggest employers, is being turned into JLR’s dedicated electric Jaguar hub as part of the company’s wider £15 billion, five-year investment programme covering its UK plants, technology and workforce. The new model, the Type 01, is due to be revealed in New York in October, ahead of reaching customers in the first half of 2027.
Solihull plays a key role
In the meantime, Range Rover and Range Rover Sport, both built at Solihull, along with Defender, which is built at JLR’s Nitra plant in Slovakia, made up a combined 80.8% of total wholesale volumes in the quarter, up from 77.2% a year earlier. JLR’s release does not break out how each of the three models performed individually, so the figure shows the strength of that range as a group rather than any one nameplate, but it does underline how much of the company’s current volume rests on the premium end of the Land Rover line-up while Jaguar is between models.
Changes in Wholesale activity not uniform across regions
Regionally, wholesale volumes rose in the Middle East and North Africa (up 4.5%) and were flat in North America, but fell in the UK (down 5.9%), Europe (down 12.1%), Overseas markets (down 20.1%) and China (down 26.2%). Retail sales were down in every market, led by a 41.5% fall in the Middle East and North Africa and a 23.9% fall in China.
JLR, a subsidiary of Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Limited, will publish its full first-quarter financial results in August. Confirmed volume data for the quarter is due on the company’s investor relations pages by 7 July.
