Jaguar Land Rover wants to offer more plug-in hybrids, but won’t abandon petrol or diesel

Jaguar Land Rover says it won’t be abandoning petrol and diesel engines in Australia any time soon, despite hoping to expand its local offerings of plug-in hybrid and fully electric vehicles.

JLR Australia managing director Mark Cameron said while he was eager to introduce more of the company’s plug-in hybrids to Australia and was pleased with the incentives being offered by certain States, it would still be some time before internal combustion engines disappeared from its line-up.

“We’re going to have a great range of technologies; we’re not going to start sacrificing the availability of petrols or diesels any time soon, or for some years,” he said.

Mr Cameron said he would like to see further action on EVs.

In recent months New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania introduce various incentives to buy electric vehicles, while as of this month the luxury car tax threshold on electric and low-emission vehicles was raised to $79,659 — some $10,000 more than ICE vehicles.

But Mr Cameron said more can be done.

“We’d obviously like to see the luxury car tax threshold be reviewed,” he said.

“We would like customers buying more expensive cars to still have some incentive to switch their buying behaviour away from internal combustion engines to low emissions, electric vehicles.

“But until there’s some incentive for those customers I think we’re still going to see a high degree of demand for straight sixes and V8s.”

“But we’re committed to trying to improve the mix of low-emissions vehicles within our fleet and we welcome what’s happening at the moment in terms of movement at state level at least to provide some incentive.”

He highlighted plug-in hybrid versions of the Jaguar E-Pace, Land Rover Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque as the type of vehicle we could see on sale in Australia.

“We have a great range of plug-in hybrids available globally; we’ve got plug-in versions of those vehicles we’re not selling in Australia.

“I’m looking at the market changes, condition changes, with a view to deciding what the best opportunity is to bring those vehicles to Australia.

“Obviously there has to be a business case, there has to be volume to warrant that.”