According to foreign media reports, on February 11, Jaguar Land Rover announced in a statement that it plans to invest $180 million in its North American technology center in the next decade to develop self-driving cars and interconnected technologies.
Jaguar Land Rover spokesman David Wrottersley revealed in an email that the investment will be distributed evenly over the next decade and will be dedicated to the company’s operating costs and engineering development at the Tech Center in Portland, Oregon, USA.
Wrottersley said the investment is part of Jaguar Land Rover’s “Reimagine” plan, which promises to achieve carbon neutrality by 2039. The investment in the Portland Technology Center is also part of Jaguar Land Rover’s large-scale investment of more than $22.4 billion for electrification.
The Portland Technology Center is one of nine similar facilities in Jaguar Land Rover around the world. Jaguar Land Rover is also investing in other tech centers, but the amount of investment in each center has not been determined yet, Wrottersley said.
Jaguar Land Rover said in a statement that as cars are increasingly powered by software, customers have growing demand for various applications, services and features, Jaguar Land Rover engineers are developing a series of cutting-edge vehicle interconnection and autonomous driving technologies.
Jaguar Land Rover hopes to provide more in-car entertainment capabilities in future models through this new investment, as well as updated driving functions and services through OTA wireless downloads, as well as the latest autonomous driving technology. Jaguar Land Rover hopes to apply functions including the application of augmented reality technology in parking scenarios and head-up display systems, and the deployment of a network of vehicles (V2X) system to enable information interaction between vehicles.
“We will invest approximately $180 million over the next decade to develop technologies that bring the ultimate connected luxury experience to users,” said Blake Lyman, senior director of software and venue operations at Jaguar Land Rover in a statement.
Jaguar Land Rover opened a tech center in Portland in 2014, and was chosen because it is close to California and Seattle, and is adjacent to tech giants such as Amazon, Nvidia, Apple and Google. The facility continued to grow and grow in 2016 and 2017 and was further expanded in 2024.
So far, Jaguar Land Rover engineers at the Portland Technology Center have played an important role in many aspects, such as the development of the on-board electrical system “EVA2” used in millions of Jaguar Land Rover cars (such as the Range Rover and the Guardian), and autonomous driving assistance. Systems (ADAS), parking cameras and other driving assistance devices, as well as integrating and connecting Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem into Jaguar Land Rover.