Off to Birmingham Friday morning to witness the birth of my P400e (all going well). When I describe it as a birth my wife winces even though I am the one writing the cheque on this occasion... so surely it's MY turn to wince? She has no birthing empathy it seems.

Others have written about the factory experience and I will write my own. It's extremely exciting for me because conceptually this car has been a long time in the making (and in the saving) and I intend to enjoy it for a long long time.

I want to thank forum members who have written up their experience of the P400e that motivated me to take the plunge (vs the 5.0 SC) for better or worse, some of whom are from the RRSport forum from whence I birthed m'self. Thank you for supplementing the brochure blurb with realistic experiences. Thank you for providing long term commentary over time from a variety of use cases which simply cannot be found from the usual motoring journalist sources.

My wife thinks we're saving the planet with this purchase. It's cute. I won't ask wee Greta's opinion on that... L405 P400e Autobiography (MY2020)... Silicon Silver / Espresso

Good luck with it sir... Enjoy your visit

What a wonderful morning spent at JLR. Hard to know where to start, really. There are certainly some astonishing metrics to share, which I’ll get my head around shortly. In terms of value, if you can get to the factory and witness your car being built (well, part of it being built, it takes 2 days to make a non-SVA vehicle), then you really must. It’s an awe inspiring experience, educational, and emotionally special.

13.5 million components arriving daily in 1000 articulated lorries. WTF.  L405 P400e Autobiography (MY2020)... Silicon Silver / Espresso

When you see how the factory operates, you see a relentless quality drive. There is automation where appropriate, for example riveting/bonding the body together, installing glass, or the majestic joining of body to chassis (which, incidentally, is a case of chassis moving UP to join the body, not body dropping down to meet the chassis, if you can believe it). Anyway all staff can (and are encouraged) to come up with ideas to improve the process and the evidence of worker-driven enhancements are clear all over the place, from the way shelves are angled towards assembly works, to the heatlamps above rubber seals to keep.make them maliable, to the one-team mantra (when they take a break the ENTIRE assembly line stops for a while).

If a few parts are faulty in arrow then quarantine the whole batch. If an associate (assembly line worker) is having trouble then he pulls the And on cord and a supervisor immediately intervenes. How can that happen immediately and without impact? Because each slice of work is scheduled for 96 seconds BUT each slice of work in reality only takes 50 to 60 seconds, so issues can get absorbed without people have to run around like headless chickens. (theory of constraints, no one resource is ever at or even near 100% utilisation).

I know some will quip about LR reliability (even though I have never had a beef with it from a personal perspective), but having seen how they work, how serious they are with quality, I honestly have renewed confidence. L405 P400e Autobiography (MY2020)... Silicon Silver / Espresso

I also saw the factory in action and was impressed with their practices. It was clear the problems aren't in the assembly process. Instead, it left me thinking LR don't stress test (or impose on their suppliers) the 1000's of opponents enough.

. Cheers, Greg
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2011 Vogue SE 4.4 with lots of toys in Stornaway