Tata's Land Rover offers software upgrade for gearbox problems

Tata Motors-owned Land Rover has sent two technical experts from the UK to China to guide a software upgrade after the luxury automaker experienced backlash for a gearbox fault for its popular Evoque brand in the world's largest auto market.
"The company has formed a special task force to address the issue after China Central Television (CCTV) reported they adopted faulty gearboxes for the Evoque model in China on Sunday", said Anthea Wang, executive vice president of Public Relations and Corporate Communications at Jaguar Land Rover China.
"We have received more than 900 reports about the gearbox problem since the first half of 2014 and found the software version did not match, leading to broken functionality," state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Wang as saying.

She said the company started upgrading the software for the Evoque owners in January this year and 22 per cent of the models sold in China, around 36,000, have been completed to date.
The same model sold in March was not involved in the fault, she said.
"Customer satisfaction is Jaguar Land Rover's (JLR) absolute priority and we are working pro-actively with relevant stakeholders in the region to arrive at a positive outcome for our customers in China," JLR spokesperson had said in London on Monday.
Tata's Jaguar Land Rover had launched the manufacturing of its popular brand Evoque sports utility vehicle (SUV) at its new factory in China's Changshu city last year.

According to a broadcast by CCTV this week, owners of Evoque cars throughout China encountered malfunctions such as a sudden stop while driving and a faulty reverse gear, which re-occurred soon after 4S stores changed the defective gearboxes with new ones for free, state-run Xinhua report said.