Thread: Land Rover Sales Figures 2018

Land Rover have become very successful by their approach, they're running a business not a charity. Origin & core identity don't pay the bills, they need to produce a vehicle that the market wants, and wants in quantity.

What were the Defender sales figures for the last few year of production ? Forget the limited editions towards the end when everyone purchased as an 'investment'.
At a guess they couldn't possibly launch a new Defender that didn't share an existing platform because it would be economic suicide. The Defender market was small and doesn't justify a dedicated assembly line, they stayed with the Defender so long because the assembly line existed and they only made small changes to new models. I wonder what they lost financially by keeping on a hand-built, limited quantity vehicle.

It will be a Defender in name only if it ever materialises.

Their current best seller the Evoque is built on the Ford Focus platform, not sure who assembles what but obviously a hangover from when Ford owned them.
They now stick to their origin & core identity by offering rebuilt Series I's. The price of them probably indicates that they make more money than they did selling a new Defender (to be fair I've no idea what they spend on the reconditioning process).

Few on this forum will be completely happy with the replacement Defender (if it ever appears) but are those same unhappy campers even in the market for a modern SUV ?


Colin

The defender died through lack of investment and good management.

They should have been in a strong position so that as the market for genuine offroaders shrunk and other players pulled out they could retain reasonable volume.

Originally Posted by rammypluge

The defender died through lack of investment and good management.

They should have been in a strong position so that as the market for genuine offroaders shrunk and other players pulled out they could retain reasonable volume.

Which is exactly what Toyota did

Maybe they are the smart ones.

They let it wither through neglect to 20,000 sales a year instead of investing to achieve 100,000 sales a year. Now they will have to play catch up.

Originally Posted by rammypluge

The defender died through lack of investment and good management.

They should have been in a strong position so that as the market for genuine offroaders shrunk and other players pulled out they could retain reasonable volume.

I don’t reckon the genuine off-roader has shrunk.....

The majority are either set up for touring or are tradies utes and there are plenty of options which seems to be catering for the masses.

Land Rover choose not to continue the development of the defender as Toyota and g wagon did.

Either way if Landrover aren’t way down the track of having a fully electric version than they will be even further behind....oh I’m talking Europe market as they don’t give a toss about Aussie market.

They say all LRs from 2020 will have electric/hybrid options.

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

They let it wither through neglect to 20,000 sales a year instead of investing to achieve 100,000 sales a year. Now they will have to play catch up.

I think maximum production was only ever around 25,000/year. It was about as much as they could pump out.

The thing was hand built, the way it was built had barely changed since 1948, it was too labour intensive to be viable.

A mate and Land Rover Australia consulting engineer went there in around 2000 and couldn't believe it.

Yes they JLR need to make vehicles that appeal to diverse buyers.
...instead they have made all their vehicles the same, appealing only to the wealthy.

No they shouldn’t have kept making Defender the old Handbuilt way.
...instead they should have begun the redesign of Defender much earlier and with more conviction about it’s integrity and importance.

JLR’s stubbornness has only increased of late and it reminds me of Brexit (navel gazing).

Anyone who thinks JLR have made good commercial design decisions recently only needs to look at Land Rover at bottom of the sales tables to realise they haven’t.

JLR have missed the boat in the ute/dualcab market, they’ve dropped the ball in the basic / durable wagon market and they’ve allowed their credibility as a 4x4 leader to wither on the yuppie Toorak tractor luxury saloon vine.