JLR APAC’s managing director Alistair Scott tells us why the Range Rover Sport is about being different and why it isn’t important to rush the upcoming Land Rover EV out to production too soon

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SINGAPORE

The next-generation Range Rover Sport touched down in Singapore earlier this month, and even as ARF taxes see a big jump for luxury cars the appetite for them is still here. The managing director for Jaguar Land Rover Asia Pacific, Alistair Scott, sat down with us to talk about how he sees the luxury car segment in Singapore going and why Land Rover appears late to the electrification of its products. 

“The Range Rover Sport was first launched in 2005, and it epitomises what Land Rover was noted for back then and even now. The brand has a knack for opening up new automotive sub-segments, and in the process bringing in new customers to the brand,” Scott says. “Over time we’ve noticed that buyers of the Range Rover Sport, as compared to the standard Range Rover, want something that stands out from the crowd. Every new generation that we’ve brought out has added something new to the table, which sees the brand retain a lot of our existing customer base while bringing in new ones too.”

At more than S$600,000 with COE the Range Rover Sport is nothing short of a piece of serious luxury motoring, but car prices in Singapore are entirely relative when a Bentley Bentayga costs more than a million dollars.

“Range Rover Sport customers tend to be highly successful entrepreneurs. It’s a car that’s quite balanced between male and female owners, and as you would expect it’s a very family-friendly luxury car. Outside of Singapore, the difference between the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport in other markets is that we’re seeing the Range Rover used more as a chauffeur-driven car, while the Range Rover Sport is a car that’s largely self-driven. That’s for other countries though, as in Singapore full-time chauffeurs are not very common and most owners prefer to drive their own cars,” says Scott.

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Interestingly, when the sales offices were shut for three months during the height of the Covid -19 pandemic, Land Rover received what Scott says were its largest amount of orders in a long time. These were fulfilled gradually as the deliveries started rolling in with the gradual re-opening of the country post-Covid.

“We’ve had to manage the semi-conductor component shortage at the height of Covid-19, which seriously delayed production for almost every car manufacturer worldwide,” Scott added. “Jaguar Land Rover has a number of global suppliers that when they shut down for whatever reason it puts an immediate halt to the JLR manufacturing business. We took as much stock as we could from our pipeline and delivered as much product as we could then, and now that component supply has stabilised we’re in a good position to further build on the brand’s sales growth.”

Scott states that Land Rover’s projected sales and deliveries for the first quarter of 2023 worldwide will be the biggest that the brand has seen in about two years. The brand has picked up pace in many countries in the region as well, with Taiwan’s population of Land Rover vehicles growing from around 800 units to a total population of 4,000 units over a five-year period. 

According to the official sales figures from Land Rover, demand for the New Range Rover, New Range Rover Sport and Defender remain strong worldwide, accounting for over 145,000 of the 205,000 orders in the first half of the 2022 financial year.

Yet, the Land Rover lineup appears to be slow on the uptake with electric cars even as other larger luxury volume sellers like Mercedes-EQ and BMW make big gains in market share worldwide.

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“Well, Land Rover launched the Reimagine program 18 months ago, and you’ll see from there that the brand has a very clear strategic plan on how it’s going to roll out,” explained Scott.

In short, the company’s Reimagine strategy revolves around the electrification of both Land Rover and Jaguar brands.The plan involves collaboration and knowledge-sharing with Tata Group companies, aiming to dramatically improve sustainability and reduce emissions. Jaguar Land Rover has stated that all Jaguar models and 60 percent of Land Rover models will be completely electric by 2030. 

There’s a plan in place for Land Rover to launch six EV variants within the next five years, built on the brand’s new Modular Longitudinal Architecture (MLA) for electric and hybrid vehicles.

“We won’t be the first to the market for luxury EVs, but that doesn’t worry us. The idea is that we do the necessary development properly, and within the Jaguar Land Rover spirit, so when we do come onto the market we will be the best in the segment. We already have ready to go the new MLA platform that will work for ICE, PHEV and EV cars, and the all-electric Range Rover Sport will be available at the end of next year. By 2025, we will be launching the all-new Jaguar range, which will be a copy of absolutely nothing and I’m really looking forward to that,” Scott rounds up.

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