[UPDATE] Jaguar Land Rover has issued a response, denying it has lost track of the vehicles: "JLR has full visibility and control of vehicles through tracking processes from the factory to market."
When a car manufacturer’s media site posts four back-to-back press releases titled “statement on cyber incident,” you can imagine things are pretty serious. Jaguar Land Rover was the victim of a cyber attack on August 31, which forced a production halt. The Tata-owned automotive conglomerate hasn’t built cars for two weeks, and the stoppage will extend into the following week. In a best-case scenario, JLR hopes to restart operations next Wednesday, September 24.
The production halt mainly affects Land Rover, since Jaguar has already discontinued all but one model ahead of its EV reinvention. The sole surviving car with the leaping cat badge is the F-Pace, but it too is being phased out to make room for an extravagant electric GT. Under normal circumstances, JLR produces more than 1,000 vehicles each day.
Automotive News Europe reports that JLR doesn’t know where 40,000 vehicles built before the cyber attack are currently located. However, Motor1 has contacted JLR, and a company spokesperson denied it: "JLR has full visibility and control of vehicles through tracking processes from the factory to market."
As bad as the production stoppage and potentially missing inventory sound, the broader impact is even more severe. The domino effect triggered by the attack is disrupting suppliers, making it harder for JLR to source parts needed for dealer servicing. At the same time, shutting down IT systems complicates efforts to obtain components required to prepare used cars for sale.
Business economics professor David Bailey told Autocar these challenges could be costing JLR as much as £5 million (nearly $7 million) per day. However, industry experts cited by the BBC suggest daily losses could be twice that amount. The production stoppage will have reached more than three weeks by September 24, so it's safe to say the math doesn't look good.
Although the company initially mentioned data hadn’t been stolen, it admitted a few days later that some confidential information may have been compromised.
It’s bad news on nearly every front, as the cyberattack continues to ripple through JLR’s operations at a time when the automaker was already struggling. U.S. tariffs and the decision to phase out most of Jaguar’s lineup had already dented sales and profits in the April-June interval.
