British luxury car brands Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Rolls-Royce have announced plans to ramp up their electrification plans and have committed to huge investments to speed the development of new cars and battery tech.

Jaguar Land Rover has secured a £625m loan secured by the UK Government to develop the brand’s Reimagine programme, which will see a total of £2.5 billion per year invested in electrification. Despite being an early advocate of pure electric cars with the launch of the Jaguar i-Pace in 2018, the Tata-owned brand has been slow to capitalise on its lead. An all-electric Jaguar XJ was understood to be ready for production ready before bosses at the brand pulled the project at the 11th hour. 

As part of the Reimagine plan, Jaguar has pledged to only sell fully electric cars by 2025. With that deadline just 152 weeks away and only the ageing i-Pace available in fully electric form, the brand will be working overtime to replace its E-Pace, F-Pace, XE, XE and F-Type with fully electric models. Land Rover, which has a more global reach in terms of products and is less affected by European bans on petrol and diesel-powered cars, has only pledged to switch to full electric power by 2036.

Jaguar's all-electric XJ was canned at the last minute

Rolls-Royce has also confirmed that it is ramping up the speed of electrification across its line-up. In an interview with Autocar, boss Torsten Müller-Ötvös confirmed that the German-owned luxury brand has firm plans to replace its current line-up with battery electric models. The first fully electric model to arrive will be the Spectre, which is set to be launched at the end of 2023. Considered to be a replacement for the ageing Wraith model, the Spectre will give the BMW-owned brand valuable experience in battery and electric motor development. 

The brand’s newer models, the best-selling Cullinan SUV, Phantom and Ghost are already built on a set of underpinnings that can accept a fully-electric drive system. Given that the Phantom and Cullinan are Rolls-Royce’s biggest selling models globally, it’s likely that these will be the next two models to be offered in full electric form.  

All-electric Rolls-Royce Spectre will launch in 2023