Land Rover is struggling to meet demand for the new-age Defender due in part to supply issues related to the global semiconductor shortage.
While speaking during the British automaker’s quarterly earnings release, Jaguar Land Rover chief financial officer Adrian Mardell added that the waiting list for some of JLR’s plug-in hybrid models is fast approaching 12 months.
“It’s the result of the supply side,” Mardell said while citing the chip shortage and difficulties in manufacturing the brand’s plug-in hybrids. “Expect those order books to normalize in six, nine, or 12-months’ time.” JLR chief executive Thierry Bollare added that the brand lost production of 7,000 units during the first quarter because of the semiconductor shortage, Auto News notes.
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Mardell also revealed that the order bank for the new Defender now sits above 20,000 with retail sales for the off-roader approaching 7,000 units per month, up from a predicted 5,000. Figures reveal that the order bank for the Defender when it first went on sale in April 2020 stood at about 8,000 and that Land Rover sold 45,244 examples during the last financial year.
While explaining why order books for the brand’s plug-in hybrid models have backed up so much, Mardell said it was partly because customers across Europe want to take advantage of lower tax impacts thanks to PHEVs’ lower emissions.
“There is particular emphasis on plug-in hybrids,” Mardell explained. “They have had a dramatic impact on our market. Some of those have a 12-month waiting list so clearly those customers are going to have to be super patient with us.”
