Last week, Land Rover announced the new 2020 Defender was officially for sale in North America. Sure enough, look on the Land Rover Canada website, and you’ll find it; you can even configure it. However, those who have been waiting impatiently for it to arrive will have to be, well, patient some more.
No surprise, the villain behind the delays the company has admitted to for the Defender is, the novel coronavirus. It forced the closure of Land Rover’s plant in Nitra, Slovakia for a long eight weeks. Normally the factory has the capacity to churn out some 150,000 units, but it’s the only facility making the Defender and has to feed the SUV to roughly 100 markets around the world. Just to add to the difficulties it faces, Nitra is also tasked with producing the Discovery model.
Looking at North America in particular, Land Rover has 188 dealerships on the continent, and each one is to receive at least one Defender by the time June winds down. Autoblog did a search and found around 100 units listed online at various outlets across the U.S.
Eventually, of course, production will return to normal and current supply problems like this one will fade before too long once plants approach full operational capacity. In the short term, those wanting to get their hands on a new Defender will have to sit sight for a little while longer.
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