Upcoming Jaguar and Land Rovers will be based upon the Chery M3X and E0X modular architectures.
While Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) may on the face of it be a proudly British company, what lies under that stiff upper lip has certainly become more and more Asian as the years go by. Such is as not only has the automotive pair been owned by an Indian company for over a decade already, but its cars may soon be feature some Chinese bones too.
More specifically, there will come a point in time for future JLR models to be based upon a pair of platforms developed by Chery. The British luxury marque has been confirmed to use the Chinese automaker’s M3X and E0X modular architectures, which currently underpins cars like the Tiggo 9, Exeed RX and Exlantix ES.
Discussing further into detail now regarding the platforms, the M3X modular architecture has been developed by Chery for predominantly ICE and PHEVs. The stand-out feature with this platform is that it accommodates the Chinese automaker’s Super Hybrid DHT powertrain, which combines an super-efficient petrol engine and 3-geared electric motor drive unit for an impressive 1,000+ km of range in certain models.
The E0X platform meanwhile is a modular EV architecture that has been jointly developed by Chery and Huawei, with provisions for range extending options. Among the highlights with this particular base is for it to feature an 800 V high-voltage charging system, in addition to a reasonably efficient energy consumption claim of 12 kWh/100 km in certain models.
At present, it is speculated for these future M3X and E0X-based Jaguars and Land Rovers will only likely be sold within the Chinese market. Though given the British marque’s troubles with going all-electric, there may be a chance yet for these Chery-based JLRs to potentially make its way beyond the Great Wall too.
It is also worth highlighting here perhaps that the British marque isn’t exactly the first western marque to utilise the bones of a Chinese car for its own models, as the current Lotus EVs are to be based off Geely’s SEA platform. What more is that the likes of Mazda and Mitsubishi have even taken it one step further already too, by selling cars (admittedly only in China) that are essentially lightly-rebadged versions of existing Changan and GAC models.
Now as for the backstory behind the partnership between Chery and Jaguar Land Rover meanwhile, it all started 12 years ago when the British marque established a joint venture with the Chinese automaker to manufacture its cars in China. This production collaboration in fact still going strong to this day, and has actually extended somewhat into the development phase as well.
JLR engineers for instance have apparently assisted Chery a lot with the suspension setup of its cars (though it certainly doesn’t feel that way when driving any of its products available locally) What is nevertheless more clear to see is for the Chinese automaker to have certainly taken quite a generous dose of inspiration from the British marque when it comes to design, with its Jaecoo sub-brand in particular a rather obvious example of this.
