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Business News The Griffin Report


Jon Griffin, Chamberlink’s award-winning columnist, meets Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, regius professor of manufacturing at Warwick Manufacturing Group and one of the world’s most renowed experts on the car industry. Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya talks about the future of the car industry, and the likely road that one of the UK’s biggest car makers, Jaguar Land Rover, will take.


The ‘heart and brains’ of Jaguar Land Rover will always be in the West Midlands – as the UK’s biggest car producer gears up for a bright new dawn across the automotive sector. World-renowned car industry


expert and JLR ally Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya told ‘Chamberlink’ that the firm’s headquarters would always be in Coventry and Warwickshire, while the company’s future commitment to the UK was sacrosanct. The Midland peer – who


personally helped to forge vital links between Tata and JLR to help seal the historic 2008 takeover by the Indians – said JLR’s roots would continue to be in the UK. He said: “JLR is British and will


always be British. Who will buy a Land Rover made in Timbuktu? “JLR are spending £3.5 billion a


year on R and D. For the first time in the Midlands we have a company which is growing, where they are competing successfully in the world, where the quality of people is second to none.” Lord Bhattacharyya, regius


professor of manufacturing at Warwick Manufacturing Group, said JLR’s aspirations could see car production volumes almost double to one million cars annually by the end of the decade. Global sales in 2016 were a record 583,000, while its UK sales accounted for 30 per cent of all domestic car production last year. Meanwhile, he forecast a new era


for the automotive industry in the West Midlands with the onset of driverless and electric cars providing huge new production opportunities for JLR. Lord Bhattacharyya’s guarantees


over JLR’s commitment to the West Midlands follow previous warnings from legendary Tata figurehead Ratan Tata – a close confidante of the peer – that Britain was trailing other countries, including the US and Eastern Europe, in attracting factory investment. The Midland peer said although


JLR’s aspiration for annual car production was one million “there are many things that need to be sorted out.” He said: “I am not in any way concerned about JLR – they have


14 CHAMBERLINK February 2017 Figures issued by Warwick


Manufacturing Group show JLR’s investment in the Whitley project is likely to top half a billion pounds, pumping more than £200 million a year into the local economy, creating up to 4,000 jobs with an additional 2,000 construction jobs. Lord Bhattacharyya said: “All the


big car companies were in Coventry, Singer, Standard, Chrysler, Rootes. We are talking here about the renaissance of Coventry – it is hard work, but something to aspire to, creating a hell of a lot of jobs.” He said perceptions of the car


industry were changing. “Young people are going into the car industry for apprenticeships. There was once a perception of manufacturing that it was all about the shopfloor and turning lathes.” Central to the new research


being undertaken at Warwick Manufacturing Group is the National Automotive Innovation Centre, a £150 million capital investment by JLR, Tata Motors European Technical Centre, WMG and the University of Warwick. The 33,000 square metre centre


at the University of Warwick will provide multi-disciplinary research teams, ensuring critical mass for innovation and technology development. Established in 1980 by Lord


Electric future: Lord Bhattacharyya


‘We are talking here about the renaissance of Coventry – it is hard work, but something to aspire to, creating a hell of a lot of jobs’


got a tremendous team at the top – in this game, you have to grow and grow and grow. “JLR shows that if you do the job


properly, look at it from a long- term viewpoint, then there is sustainability. Why do they spend so much money on product development? What do you sell? You do not sell people, you sell the product.” JLR is also at the forefront of


innovation of electric cars, with plans on the drawing board to build a factory capable of producing enough batteries to power up to 200,000 cars a year.


A 60-acre site at Whitley to the


south of Coventry has already been earmarked and the project is awaiting a commitment from the Government for financial support. “Electric cars will come because


of the environment – all car companies will be migrating to electric cars – everybody is doing a lot of R and D. The effort that is going into this is huge all over the world, it will be a new type of manufacturing.” The battery factory plans are part


of hopes to make Coventry a ‘Smart Motor City’ to emulate the likes of Munich, Stuttgart and Michigan.


Bhattacharyya, Warwick Manufacturing Group has grown to become the largest group of its kind in the world, founded upon ‘academic excellence with industrial relevance.’ It has forged links with more than


1,000 global companies including Airbus, Alstom, Turkish Airlines, Tata, General Electric, Vodafone and others as well as JLR. It currently boasts 625 staff including industrial secondees, plus 2,200 masters and 250 doctoral students. The Midland peer added: “We


have not had a penny from the university, we paid for it ourselves. We have spent £500 million on buildings alone. “The emphasis is on research


and innovation and the skills to put that into place. People think of us as just being the car industry but we do a hell of a lot of work in health and construction.”


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