Jaguar Land Rover takes action as sales slide 13%

Britain’s biggest carmaker, owned by Indian conglomerate Tata, booked a £90 million pre-tax ploss in the three months to September 30, compared to a £385m profit in the same period last year.

Revenues were also down 10.9% year-on-year at £5.6bn as retail sales declined 13.2% to 129,887 vehicles.

In China, demand was adversely impacted by consumer uncertainty following import duty changes and escalating trade tensions with the US.

While in the UK, “continuing uncertainty related to Brexit” persisted.

JLR’s figures were also dented by the introduction of European emissions standards known as WLTP, which have resulted in a fall in demand for diesel cars.

Boss Ralf Speth said: “In the latest quarterly period, we continued to see more challenging market conditions.

“Our results were undermined by slowing demand in China, along with continued uncertainty in Europe over diesel, Brexit and the WLTP changeover.”

As part of efforts to arrest the decline, Mr Speth will look to make £2.5bn of profit, cost and cashflow improvements over the next 18 months.