Transforming a car manufacturing plant that has been in operation for seven decades into a future-proof facility is no easy task. Among the challenges faced is dealing with 1960s architecture drawings and the imperial system. Dan Ford, the site director at Jaguar Land Rover's (JLR) Halewood site in Merseyside, England, explains, "We had to survey everything and go out with the tape measure. But the drawing's measurements were off: we struck a drainpipe."
Overcoming Challenges and Smooth Upgrades
Despite a minor setback due to the Great British weather and an August downpour that delayed work by 48 hours, JLR's £250 million ($323.4 million) upgrade of its Halewood plant has been progressing smoothly. Located off the River Mersey, 10 miles from Liverpool, Halewood has long been a symbol of the British car industry. JLR is the UK's largest automotive employer. (The company's controversial Jaguar Type 00 will be built at a different factory in Solihull). The transformation plans began in late 2020. Ford's team replaced the tape measure with a digital twin, scanning 1,000 sqm (10,764 sq ft) of the plant's footprint, floor to ceiling, every weekend.Now, Halewood is ready to produce cars of the future. A fleet of 750 robots, often referred to as "our version of the Terracotta Army," along with laser alignment technology and cloud-based infrastructure, work alongside 3,500 JLR employees on the factory floor. The factory has been expanded by 32,364 sqm (348,363 sq ft) to accommodate the production of the manufacturer's next-generation vehicles. New calibration rigs measure the responsiveness of advanced driver-assistance systems such as cameras and sensors. Safety levels can be calibrated for future autonomous driving, as Ford explains.The first stage of the redevelopment was the construction of a new body shop with two floors separated by 2.5 meters (eight feet) of concrete to accommodate heavy machinery. This body shop is capable of producing 500 vehicle bodies per day and is now in the commissioning stage. Pre-production electrified medium-sized SUVs are set to be tested through 2025. Forty new autonomous mobile robots assist Halewood employees in fitting high-voltage batteries. Other additions include a £10 million ($12.9 million) automated painted body storage tower that can stack up to 600 vehicles and retrieve them by cranes for just-in-time customer orders.Halewood is JLR's first all-electric facility. The UK government's zero emission vehicle mandate, which became effective at the beginning of 2024, requires 22 per cent of all new car sales to be zero emission. This has forced the industry to accelerate electric vehicle production and effectively ban the sale of new petrol cars by 2035. The EU has similar regulations in place. Each of JLR's luxury marques will have a pure electric model by 2030. The Range Rover Electric is set for pre-order, and the Jaguar I-Pace, the company's only available battery-electric vehicle launched in 2018, is being discontinued.A high payload robot with black pneumatic suction cups is ready to pick up a vehicle hood, while surrounding pneumatic clasps secure the panel in place.Photography: JLRThe plant's final production line has also been extended by 50 per cent, with 6km (3.7mi) to accommodate battery fitting. All-electric vehicles will be produced in parallel with JLR plug-in hybrids and internal combustion engines. Traditionally, petrol cars are built around the engine with full-vehicle length components. However, electric vehicles have a different build. "The battery goes in much later during the production process—electric drive units go onto front and rear subframes, with a large battery in the middle. That's why we had to expand our production line, spread the process out, and keep our battery electric vehicles separate," says Ford.JLR aims to be carbon-net zero by 2039. As a result, the manufacturer, part of Indian conglomerate Tata, plans to double its £250 million investment in Halewood over the following years. The focus on electric energy and renewables is expected to reduce the plant's carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions by 40,000 tonnes. Ford mentions plans to install 18,000 solar panels that can produce 8,600 GWh, equivalent to 10 per cent of the site's energy consumption.Some new features in the plant are designed for aesthetics rather than sustainability. Nearly one mile of the paint shop has been modified to meet growing consumer demand for contrasting-color roofs. Curing creates a premium finish, but this meant the whole plant had to be shut down for five weeks in summer 2023. "One-and-a-half weeks was just for clean-up. The paint environment has to be incredibly clean—you literally need the dust to settle, clean, then settle again," says Ford.The robots are also catering to the tastes of JLR's well-heeled customers. "We now have robots picking up doors and measuring the [car body's] aperture, rather than a manual cladding line. The preference from a discerning customer base is tight gaps around the doors with flush finishes. An automated system can achieve this with nice even gaps all the way around," says Ford.This article first appeared in the January/February 2025 edition of WIRED UK.
