Land Rover can’t keep up with demand for Range Rover & Range Rover Sport

There’s a 9 month waiting list for the new Range Rover Sport (pictured)

The Range Rover has been a big success for Land Rover in recent years, and the launch of the new Range Rover last year – even with big price rises – has seen demand soar to unprecedented levels. Good news for JLR. To add to that, the arrival of the all new Range Rover Sport – this time based on the new Range Rover instead of the old Discovery – has seen the RRS turn from a footballers wife’s car in to a proper sporty SUV, one that can take on the likes of the Porsche Cayenne and BMW X5 on-road and obliterate them off-road.

That brilliant combination has seen demand for the Sport also soar to levels Land Rover could never have imagined so now (reportedly 40 per cent above expectations) , just a few months after production started, Land Rover already has a nine month waiting list for the Sport (and six months for the Range Rover).

Add in to that equation the on-going demand for the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

They’re already running Solihull 24 hours a day, Ford can’t keep up with demand for the engines they still supply to JLR and its got to the position where buyers in China are reportedly willing to pay a £50k premium to get to the front of the queue for a new Range Rover, despite list prices that are as high as £300k.

It’s a problem for Land Rover, but what a problem to have. How they’re going to solve it isn’t clear, but you can be sure the strong margins JLR are making on the Range Rover and Sport will offer plenty of opportunity to expand production to meet demand.

And in the meantime, buyers of the new Range Rover and Sport can probably run their cars for the next 6-12 months and then move them on with little in the way of depreciation.

Source: Automotive News

By Cars UK