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Jaguar Land Rover: Petrol and diesel not going anywhere yet, plug-in hybrids now a chance for Australia

Jaguar and Land Rover double down on petrol and diesel engines for now, while signalling more low-emission options for Australia.


Jaguar Land Rover Australia managing director Mark Cameron has told media traditional petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles will still be available over the coming years, albeit in an increasingly electrified market.

While the Jaguar and Land Rover conglomerate has stated diesel engines would be phased out from 2026 as it moves towards a target of zero tailpipe emissions by 2036, Mr Cameron still sees plenty of opportunity in the meantime for traditional petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles, especially in the Australian market.

“We’re not going to start sacrificing the availability of petrols and diesels any time soon, in fact for some years,” Mr Cameron told media this week.

These comments are in contrast to those from Jeep, which is actively moving away from diesel power, in particular for its new range of Grand Cherokee and Grand Wagoneer four-wheel drives – with the former slated to drop diesel power for its next generation, despite accounting for a notable portion of sales.

Jaguar Land Rover’s steadfast approach will be centred around its range of ‘Ingenium’ petrol and diesel engines, which include four-cylinder and six-cylinder variants of petrol and diesel engines, available across a wide range of models.

Along with a new range of petrol and diesel engines (many with mild-hybrid technology), the 2022 Land Rover Defender 90 and 110 will be available with a supercharged 5.0-litre petrol V8, good for 386kW/625Nm.

At the same time, Jaguar Land Rover is currently investigating bringing plug-in hybrid variants of its models into Australia for the first time, in the wake of recent government incentives.

Currently, Jaguar Land Rover produces plug-in hybrid variants of the Land Rover Discovery Sport and Defender, Range Rover Evoque and Velar, and the Jaguar E-Pace and F-Pace.

Mr Cameron said that Jaguar Land Rover is looking at the market and changes in conditions, and investigating where the best opportunities lie.

“Obviously there has to be a business case, there has to be volume to warrant that. But we’re committed to try and improve the mix of low emissions vehicles in our fleet, and we welcome what’s happened in terms of movements at state level at least, to provide some incentive.”

However, Cameron also believes that there is still some work to be done to improve the appeal of electric and hybrid vehicles in Australia, especially around the luxury car tax threshold for electric vehicles.

“We would like customers buying more expensive cars to still have some incentive to switch buying behaviour away from traditional [internal-combustion] engines to low emissions electrified engines,” he said.

“But until there is some incentive for those customers, I think we are still going to see a high degree of demand for straight-sixes and V8s.”


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Sam Purcell

Sam Purcell has been writing about cars, four-wheel driving and camping since 2013, and obsessed with anything that goes brum-brum longer than he can remember. Sam joined the team at CarAdvice/Drive as the off-road Editor in 2018, after cutting his teeth at Unsealed 4X4 and Pat Callinan’s 4X4 Adventures.

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