Jaguar Land Rover launches phased restart at factories after cyber-attack

Jaguar Land Rover has launched a phased restart of its manufacturing operations, more than a month after the British carmaker was hit by a crippling cyber-attack, as it revealed its sales had dropped sharply in a “challenging quarter”.

The maker of Jaguar and Land Rover cars has been scrambling to get its systems up and running again after the hack on the last day of August forced it to shut down factories and retail operations around the world.

JLR also announced a new financing scheme to provide its struggling suppliers with cash upfront during the restart period. This means those that qualify will be paid much faster than usual, aiding their cashflow, it said. The scheme will then be expanded to include some non-production suppliers.

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The carmaker said the phased restart would begin on Wednesday at its sites across the West Midlands, including at its engine-making factory in Wolverhampton and its battery assembly centre in Hams Hall near Birmingham, which produces batteries for its electric vehicles.

Work will also recommence at its stamping operations in Castle Bromwich, Halewood and Solihull, and other important areas of its Solihull factory, such as its body shop, paint shop and its logistics centre, which feeds parts to JLR’s global manufacturing sites.

Vehicle manufacturing in Nitra, Slovakia, will restart shortly after, along with the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport production lines in Solihull this week. An update on JLR’s Halewood plant on Merseyside will be given soon.

The announcement comes after the Guardian revealed that some staff had returned to work at the Wolverhampton site on Monday and that work would recommence this week at Solihull and Nitra.

Figures published on Tuesday show that, unsurprisingly, JLR’s retail sales tumbled by 17% year on year to 85,495 vehicles in the three months to 30 September, while wholesale deliveries fell by 24%.

JLR said this reflected the production stoppage since the start of September, the planned wind-down of legacy Jaguar models before the launch of a new car, and US tariffs affecting its US exports.

Retail sales fell in all markets, led by the UK, which was down by 32.3%. Sales declined by 12.1% in Europe, 9% in North America, 22.5% in China and 15.8% in the Middle East and north Africa.

Adrian Mardell, the JLR chief executive, said the restart marked “an important moment”, adding: “We know there is much more to do but our recovery is firmly under way.”

The production shutdown has left the companies that provide parts for JLR cars in limbo. Some small suppliers have been asked by banks to put up their family homes as personal guarantees in order to access emergency loans, with no direct UK government support on offer.

The government has said it will underwrite a £1.5bn loan guarantee to JLR to give its suppliers some certainty, although none of that cash is yet available more than a week after the government claimed it was supporting the automotive supply chain.

JLR has had to rely on a manual payment system to settle outstanding invoices since the cyber-attack, but this week re‑established automated supplier payment systems.

The short‑term financing scheme means suppliers will receive a majority prepayment shortly after the point of order, and a final payment on receipt of invoice. JLR’s typical supplier payment terms are 60 days post invoice, so the change should speed up payments by as much as 120 days.

JLR employs 34,000 people in its UK operations, and has the largest supply chain in the country’s carmaking industry, much of it made up of small and medium-size enterprises, which employ about 120,000 people.

Mardell said: “From tomorrow, we will welcome back our colleagues at our engine production plant in Wolverhampton, shortly followed by our colleagues making our world‑class cars at Nitra and Solihull.”

He added: “Our suppliers are central to our success, and today we are launching a new financing arrangement that will enable us to pay our suppliers early, using the strength of our balance sheet to support their cashflows.”

The business secretary, Peter Kyle, said the restart was “very welcome news for workers and suppliers, but I know many are still under pressure, particularly further down the supply chain. My focus will remain on helping JLR resolve this cyber incident, making further progress towards restarting production, and supporting the long-term health of our automotive supply chain.”