Jaguar Land Rover is reportedly putting I-Pace production on hold for a week thanks to a battery shortage at supplier LG Chem.
While sales of the model are ridiculously low in North America, European deliveries average about 1,000 units per month. That’s comparable to the Audi e-Tron, which also suffered production delays due in part to its relationship with the supplier. Before that, Hyundai was the one pointing the finger at LG Chem after running out of batteries for the Ioniq EV.
According to The Times, Jaguar Land Rover will have Magna Steyr stall assembly until February 17th. The automaker said the delay stems from LG Chem’s battery factory in Poland, but did not elaborate on what caused the shortage. There’s a chance this could be a pricing issue, similar to the one Audi contended with in 2018, though nothing is confirmed other than supply chain problems and an absence of batteries at the I-Pace’s assembly plant in Graz, Austria.
It might seem strange that such a low-volume model is running into supply problems, but LG’s history with automakers is semi spotty. There’s also a chance that JLR didn’t need Magna Steyr humming along due to a lapse in demand and these convenient supply issues are simply an excuse to ease off. Unfortunately, JLR’s decision to move to quarterly reports makes this particular conspiracy theory difficult to confirm — as we’ve no sales data for the start of 2020.
I-Pace demand could have fallen into the toilet or shot through the roof. We won’t know for another month.
[Images: Jaguar Land Rover]
“Once the established automakers get in the EV game, they’ll crush Tesla.”
To be fair, Jaguar is just about the weakest example of an “established automaker”. They have been on the rocks for more than 10 years.
Yeah, surely they will. Meantime TSLA tripled in couple of weeks.
“Carmaker known for dodgy electrics has trouble building electric cars…In other news, The Pope is Catholic”
Perhaps the reason that Tesla dominates EVs is that they can actually manage their supply train.
You’re today’s winner.
Yoh GAS…
IT’S SUPPLY ‘CHAIN!’
The Jag I-Pace is one of my favorite EV’s. The only thing fault I find is the infotainment system is laggy.
Otherwise, it has decent range, reasonable packaging and a good size for real world uses. Price is fair for this market space and undercuts Porsche and e-tron when you factor in the discounts at dealers.