Land Rover is ‘obsessed about reliability’

Owners of cars with the InControl Touch Pro infotainment system will also gain a free update to the latest software.

Alborz Fallah

05:1312 September 2019

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Nick Rogers, head of engineering at Land Rover, says the brand is obsessed with improving its reliability, perceived or otherwise. And while it's not where it wants to be today, the company is "pushing like nothing on earth".

Speaking to Australian media at the Frankfurt motor show, Rogers admitted Land Rover is going through rapid internal changes to improve the reliability of its electronics.

Rogers, who always wanted to be an electrical engineer, said there is an obsession internally with improvements in the field of electronics and software reliability.

“From how you look at us five years ago and how we are today, [the] rate of growth is like nothing on earth,” Rogers said.

“We’ve developed a training program from network design to software engineering... [and] ran a complete training program for all leadership, educating the whole of the management team.”

Land Rover is ‘obsessed about reliability’

As part of that attention and focus on software, all Land Rover, Range Rover and Jaguar vehicles sold with the InControl Touch Pro system will be offered a free software upgrade that brings the interface up to the latest 2019 spec, incorporating Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

As for generally reliability, Rogers believes that the company’s agility and size is a positive that can be leveraged for rapid improvements.

“[We are] obsessed about reliability. All of the cars that we are running now are data logged, every device transmitter, everything that is going on [is logged]. We are on a journey, you don't wake up one morning and everything is perfect.

"We are the most improved brand in JD Power. Not happy with our position, but we are moving with an obsession to change, and it will take some time and we are absolutely pushing it like nothing on Earth.”

In the 2019 JD Power US initial quality survey, Land Rover owners reported 37 fewer problems per hundred vehicles compared to 2018.

There's still a long road ahead, though, as Land Rover ranked 21st out of 25 brands in the latest JD Power UK vehicle dependability survey, moving up one place from the year before.