JLR Blasts Chinese Copy of Evoque SUV

Jaguar Land Rover Ltd. is strongly criticizing China's Jiangling Motors Co. for its "copy-and-paste" clone of JLR's Range Rover Evoque luxury SUV, Bloomberg News reports.

But CEO Ralf Speth adds, "There are no laws, there's nothing to protect us, so we have to take it as it is."

Jiangling unveiled its Landwind X7 in November and intends to begin selling it this summer for 150,000 yuan ($24,200), about one-third the price of the Evoque.

The Landwind and Evoque are virtually identical in profile. Bloomberg notes that promotional material for the Landwind touts the car's lower price compared with an unspecified imported model.

JLR, a unit of India's Tata Motors Ltd., began assembling the Evoque outside Shanghai in March. The SUV retails for about 448,000 yuan ($72,200) in China.