Jaguar Land Rover asks British Government for Loan

Jaguar Land Rover is reportedly seeking a £1 billion ($1.3 billion) loan from the British government. Though the automaker has yet to officially comment on this possibility, the automaker has already submitted the request and the government could make a decision on the matter in the next two weeks.

Jaguar Land Rover's CEO, David Smith, has already suggested publicly that British car makers should get government support to help them through the economic crisis. "Unless we introduce further measures to reignite the UK economy, there is significant risk," commented Smith.

The automaker, like much of the auto industry right now, has suffered a downturn in sales. Land Rover in particular has been hit hard, suffering a thirty-seven percent drop in the United States for the first ten months of 2008, while sales in Britain fell twenty-seven percent in the same time frame.

Posted in: Jaguar,Land Rover