Jaguar I-PACE production halted over battery shortage

Production of the pure-electric Jaguar I-PACE will be temporarily suspended over a supply issue with its large lithium-ion battery cells.

According to Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), manufacturing at the Magna Steyr plant in Graz, Austria will be halted from next Monday (February 17) for a week following a failure by battery supplier, LG Chem, to delivery it 90kWh battery packs in time.

LG Chem, which also supplies its batteries to Audi and Mercedes-Benz, is reportedly struggling with unprecedented demand.

Jaguar had been trying to secure more battery capacity before the current stoppage and signed a deal with Samsung SDI back in 2018.

Last year, Jaguar sold 18,000 I-PACEs worldwide, with the battery-powered SUV now accounting for 16 per cent of Jaguar's European sales.

Commenting on the shortages, Jaguar says it is "working with the supplier to resolve this [issue] to minimise impact on customer orders."

The timing couldn't be worse for the struggling British car-maker following yesterday's news that it was scaling back production at two of its car plants to reduce costs due to decreased emand.

Despite sales slumps in key markets including China, sales of both the recently-launched Range Rover Evoque are up by 30 per cent, while Discovery Sport sales have also increased more than nine per cent.

In order to cut costs, JLR had already launched Project Charge – an aggressive internal initiative that prioritised its most profitable models, slashed the costs of manufacturing and cut 4500 jobs in a bid to save £1.1 billion ($A2.1b) by 2021.