Jaguar Land Rover to open R&D centre for automated tech in Ireland

JLR

Britain's biggest carmaker Jaguar Land Rover said on Monday it would open a software engineering centre in Ireland, creating 150 jobs to work on advanced automated driving and electrification technologies.

JLR said last year that all its new cars would be available in an electric or hybrid version from 2020 and is building its first fully electric model, the I-PACE, in Austria, which will go on sale in 2018.

The company said it had selected Shannon, in western Ireland, as it is a globally recognised centre of excellence for software engineering talent.

"The new facility provides an exciting opportunity for us to pioneer future autonomous and electrification technologies," said JLR's Executive Director of Product Engineering Nick Rogers.

"The creation of a team in Shannon strengthens our international engineering capabilities and complements our existing team of more than 10,000 engineers based in the UK.