Land Rover has paused production of its big-selling Defender and the Discovery 7-seater.
Global semiconductor chip shortage affected automakers, including JLR. Land Rover has halted the production at the factory in Nitra, Slovakia for that reason. This is the latest facility of Jaguar Land Rover that underwent a chip shortage impact.
It is still unclear when the Slovakian manufacturing site reopens. There are no firm timeframes for today. It’s sad, as the plant produces the high-demand Land Rover Defender, as well as the Discovery SUV. Its capacity is 150,000 vehicles per year – more than 1/5 of JLR’s output before the coronavirus pandemic.
According to estimates, wait times for the Defender were around 12 months before the closure. Now, wait times will expectedly increase for customers as a result.
In the USA, the Defender is the second Land Rover by sales in Q1 2021, with 4,913 units sold. The first is the Range Rover Sport. Soon the results of the 2nd quarter will follow, and we’ll see and compare. As for the Discovery, the carmaker sold 2,478 Discovery Sport vehicles and 393 units of the Discovery LR4 from January to March.
Source: Autocar
