Mumbai: Tata Motors-owned British luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover faces potential tariff impacts of 1.6 billion pounds (about $2.1 billion) from new US trade measures, Tata Group chairman N Chandrasekaran said. He noted that ongoing mitigation plans aim to reduce this impact to 600 million pounds. “Tariff is a major issue, primarily for JLR,” said Chandrasekaran at Tata Motors’ 80th AGM on Friday. “Without intervention, JLR’s tariff rate would have gone from 2.5% to 27.5%. With the US-UK trade deal, the 27.5% tariff will drop to 10%. The overall impact even of the 10% will be 1.6 billion pounds. But JLR has taken a lot of steps through which it will be able to reduce the impact to 600 million pounds.” This AGM marked Chandrasekaran’s first appearance at a shareholder meeting after the Air India flight 171 crash on June 12, having missed shareholder meetings at Tata Consumer Products and TCS. The meeting held additional significance as it was the final AGM for Tata Motors before its division into two listed companies by year-end, focusing on passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles, respectively. Chandrasekaran also assured shareholders that China’s export restrictions on rare earth magnets pose no immediate supply concerns, while the company explores alternative sourcing options. Rare earth elements play a crucial role in the production of permanent magnets, which are essential components in electric motors.
