The automaker on Monday announced a partnership with North Carolina-based Wolfspeed to use the latter’s silicon carbide semiconductor technology in future electric vehicles. Wolfspeed has provided similar technology to the Jaguar TCS Racing Formula E team, which has used it to “accelerate efficiency and performance on the track,” JLR noted in a press release.
Special silicon carbide semiconductors will be used in future Jaguar and Land Rover EV inverters, with JLR expecting increased range and increased efficiency.
2022 Land Rover Range Rover at Napa Valley press conference, April 2022
Expected to be manufactured at a Wolfspeed facility in New York, the semiconductor will first be incorporated into Range Rover models starting in 2024 and Jaguar models next year. Jaguar is expected to go all-electric by then, although management has changed electrification plans several times over the past few years.
Before canceling completely top electric Jaguar XJ in 2021, the company was giving mixed signals about its development priorities — including that it did not see ‘diminishing returns’ of large battery-powered electric SUVs worth it, given that hydrogen fuel cells are better.
2022 Jaguar I-Pace
That is reported to have left Jaguar looking for a new platform, after they decided not to add more models based on the I-Pace, the brand’s only current EV. Then in February of this year Jaguar revealed that they were still working on a “perfect fit“platform for an upcoming series of EVs, as part of the “Reimagine” strategy.
That strategy, which the Wolfspeed partnership also implements, aims to achieve net carbon emissions across JLR products, operations and supply chains by 2039.
BMW and JLR cooperate in 2019 to share some EV propulsion components moving forward, like electric actuators, motors and controllers, so it’s unclear how this new deal with Wolfspeed affects that. any.
