What's the news?

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) claims that its new Research and Development Centre in the UK should help the company become a closer rival to other luxury car brands such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz; and as such has unveiled plans to invest a further £50 million into the facility - bringing the total cost up to £94 million.

The extra funding for the centre will come from a variety of sources including the UK Government's Higher Education Funding Council.

"The centre will be the first of its kind in the UK to completely link advanced manufacturer research with higher education," said Kumar Bhattacharyya, Chairman of Warwick Manufacturing Group - another JLR investor. "BMW and Mercedes have a symbiotic relationship with universities. They put huge sums of money into it to do state-of-the-art R&D."

When Ford sold JLR to Tata in 2008, research and development was severely affected, which, according to JLR research boss, Tony Harper, is causing the company to falter against its rivals from Germany.

"We are doing bits of advanced research; but a lot of our internal capacity is being taken up by development needs such as durability testing," comments Harper.

The increase in financial investment isn't the only change, as research staffing levels are expected to increase from 150 to 500 by the time the centre opens in 2016. In addition, JLR is looking to include its suppliers in the R&D process as opposed to just having them tinker with the finished product.

In summary, all of this extra funding, increase in resources and inclusion of suppliers is aimed at improving five areas that JLR believes will make it stand up against the competition: vehicle design, engines, electric propulsion, autonomous vehicles and handling.

Anything else?

JLR's new R&D Centre is expected to begin construction in September 2014.