British Crossover with an Eastern Cut: What the Electric Freelander Showed 0 10

The British company Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has unveiled the revived Freelander crossover, created in collaboration with the Chinese company Chery. Engineers from China play a leading role in this project. Currently, JLR is facing serious difficulties. Will it be able to maintain its identity with Chinese help?

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Freelander is a landmark model for Jaguar Land Rover. Launched in 1997, it was a bold experiment for the off-road brand — small dimensions, a unibody structure, and fully independent suspension. Meanwhile, for several years, it was the most popular all-wheel-drive vehicle in Europe, with sales exceeding 500,000 units. The second generation of the crossover was produced until 2015.

The revival of the Freelander name coincided with the dire situation of the British company. Due to the production halt in August 2025 caused by a hacker attack, Jaguar Land Rover was losing about £50 million ($66.5 million) per week. The total damage to the UK economy from this incident amounted to $2.5 billion and affected more than 5,000 various organizations in the country. The slow recovery of production after the cyberattack, American tariffs, and the relaunch of the Jaguar brand led to a 43% drop in JLR sales in the fourth quarter of last year and losses of $421 million.

The company's problems did not end there. On March 26, 2026, Jaguar Land Rover was forced to suspend production of some models in Solihull due to supply chain issues. The break, as promised, will last less than two weeks.

The future of the sister brand Jaguar appears uncertain: on December 19, 2025, the release of the last Jaguar F-Pace with a 575-horsepower V8 engine in Solihull marked the end of the era of internal combustion engine vehicles. The brand decided to focus on luxury electric vehicles, which are less mass-market but can ensure profitability due to their high price. However, the rebranding initiated at the end of 2024 under the slogan Copy Nothing turned out to be a failure. The advertisement featuring "gender-neutral" models, the new logo with squiggles, and the Type 00 concept, which not only looked strange but was also painted in pink and blue colors, faced criticism.

The sum of grievances was expressed by U.S. President Donald Trump on Truth Social, who called the incident "a complete disaster."

"The CEO just shamefully resigned, and the company is in complete chaos. Who would want to buy a Jaguar after seeing this disgraceful advertisement?" Trump wrote.

JLR CEO Adrian Mardell indeed left his position, and then chief designer Gerry McGovern was reportedly fired in one day, despite his previous merits. Patamaday Balaji, a representative from Indian Tata Motors, which owns JLR, took over from Mardell.

For the sake of the luxury electric "Jaguar," new versions of the XF, F-Pace, and F-Type were sent "under the knife," but JLR is now forced to postpone the launch of the model, as its development took longer than expected. Additionally, the company was surprised by the low demand for expensive electric vehicles.

As a way out of JLR's dire situation, a deal with Chery is being considered, under which the latter may start producing its cars in the UK. This will help preserve jobs and bring additional profit to the British manufacturer after the catastrophic 2025.

Chery is a long-time partner of Jaguar Land Rover; the joint venture implies not only the production of cars for the Chinese market but also technical cooperation. British engineers helped refine the T1X platform, on which the Tiggo crossovers and models from the Omoda and Jaecoo brands are built. Now, a new Freelander will be built on this well-known platform, claims Autocar.

JLR's CFO Richard Molinier revealed to Automotive News that engineers from Chery play a major role in the development of the Freelander. The battery is supplied by CATL, and the tuning of the intelligent all-wheel-drive system was entrusted to Huawei, which also worked on the onboard electronics. The vehicle is being created for the Chinese market and must meet local tastes as closely as possible — an electric powertrain, large displays on the dashboard.


The Freelander is expected to transform from a model into a whole family of electric vehicles and hybrids. Moreover, the Chinese will pay for the use of the name. In the next four years, six new models are promised under the Freelander brand.