Moving on to the Q&A section, a couple of questions already lined up. Richard, the first set of questions coming your way. First one is, where is the breakeven in FCF for JLR in terms of wholesales per year? I believe it used to be around 325,000 units per year. Is that the case? How is your order book at the end of Q3? VMEs have significantly increased year -to-date, reaching 7.7%. Where and when do you see them reaching peak levels?

Okay, so let me go through that set of questions. So, it's fair to say that this year our cash breakeven is significantly above 325,000 units, but that's a metric that's best used prospectively to judge how well the business is performing rather than retrospectively. Prospectively we will give you a proper update on FY27 and the years beyond in our Investor Day in June, so probably defer further conversation of that until then. Our order bank is in a decent place at the end of Q3 and is higher than it was at the end of September, so we are building order intake relatively strongly. And I think the power of our brands is our biggest advantage, and I did mention the Dakar win early on, we are already seeing a direct influence of that on the order intake on Defender. So, Defender order intake is now around 10,000 units a month from the global press coverage and brand enhancement that things like Dakar have. So, we will focus on continuing to grow our brand and use that to pull through some of the problems that we face. But we will keep needing to spend money on VME, that's the third part of this question here. It did reach 7.7% in Q3. I expect it may go up marginally in the next six months, but after that point in time when we have run through the Jaguar's and we're starting to think through launching new vehicles, I would expect that to cap and start to come down. So, the peak level relatively close to that 7.7%. And in terms of your fourth part of your question, in the bond market, look, we're assessing it. I don't have anything to announce at this stage, but we're definitely looking at it.

Okay. Richard, can we take up a second question also from Kapil . JLR gross margins can you please explain the sharp improvement quarter -on-quarter, even high VME, what is the outlook on account of commodities and semiconductor prices?

Okay. So, look, gross margins, the explanation is simple and complex at the same time. Whenever you build down inventory, you take manufacturing cost out of your balance sheet and charge it through the P&L. Whenever you build up in inventory, the reverse happens. So, in Q2, we destocked massively, because we weren't producing any cars. So, that meant that the P&L took a charge from the balance sheet for fixed manufacturing and other overheads. In Q3, that reversed. That's the main cause of the difference in gross margin. It's simply a timing effect and the stocking cycle. You can see the flip side of that in our working capital numbers, because our working capital grew rapidly in Q3. So, just to support it – taka a look at the EBIT bridge that Richard has called out. It actually teases out the various line items in greater detail. What's it on mix, what's it on emissions, what's it on warranty, what's it on the labor and overheads that Richard just referred to. I think that will give you a good color on how the flow is happening. And beyond EBIT, we also have the impact of the currency as well. So, I think as you understand that sheet better, I think it'll give you all the answers that you're looking for.

Next set of questions from Jinesh, Richard, sending it your way. How do you see increasing competition from local brands in the luxury car segment? JLR debt has increased substantially due to operational disruptions. Do you expect to go back to net cash position in the next two-three quarters? How has tariff transmission strategy evolved considering demand, environment, and production disruption? I think VME, you kind of already explained, you can skip that. Given the transitory and structural challenges, is there a case to revisit your Cap ex guidance? FCF guidance implies 4Q, FCF for 0.5 billion to 0.8 billion. Does it imply that 4Q production, wouldn't it have to be normalized?

Okay, I'll start at the top. Well, in China, there is definitely a squeeze on the luxury segment, and that is a squeeze from below in terms of the local new energy vehicles, but also a squeeze from above in terms of a general move away from luxury by the Chinese authorities, which is evidenced partly by their increase in luxury car tax thresholds in July, where they basically levied an extra 10% duty on all cars with a transaction price between RMB 0.9 million and RMB 1.3 million. So, there is a bit of a squeeze going on, and you can see that in all OEMs data in relation to China. We are going to make sure, as I referenced earlier, we do not overstock that market and that we rely on the power of our brands to pull through sales. Accepting that in the short term, that is going to mean that we hurt a bit in China, but we will protect that market for its long-term abilities to grow. Our debt has increased. It will certainly not get back to net cash over the next two or three quarters. That is going to be something that takes a little bit more time. You can see from the fact that we started the year with GBP 250 million roughly of net cash. We will lose in our guidance between GBP 2.2 billion and GBP 2.5 billion FCF and additionally paid a dividend of circa GBP 450 million during the year. So, you can work from that where we will end up this year; and then, as I said beforehand, we will give you guidance on FY27 and beyond in our investor day, but is not something that is going to disappear over the next two to three quarters. It is more embedded than that. Tariff transmission strategy, it's a good question, but one that is really difficult to answer. So, we did increase our prices in the U.S. and we increased things like delivery charges and various other mechanisms to try and recover some of the duties. Market forces then overtake and what you find is we are probably compensating a fair amount of that now in terms of increased VME , as all manufacturers globally suffering in China and some other markets, look at those markets, which are still robust and try and push sales. So, it's a really good question. It's not quite so easy to answer in terms of how much of our price increases from the tariff changes have actually stuck and how much have been compensated by other market forces. Next one, yes, it was partly due to the Jaguar phase -out. So, the only vehicles in Jaguar that we are currently producing, and that's only for another few weeks, is the F -Pace, where we are building some stock for the U.S. market. Other than that, we are literally in the r un out of all old Jaguars. I have mentioned VME before. Capex guidance, I think, will be GBP 3.6 billion, GBP 3.7 billion from what I can see today. And your point around FCF is correct, that GBP 0.5 billion to GBP 0.8 billion positive is where we are heading and what we need in order to meet the numbers that we have committed to , and Q4 production has normalized. So, the majority of our business is focused on Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Defender. Those vehicles, the first two were produced in Solihull. The last one is produced in Nitra. All of those plants are now back fully running at capacity and there are no residual cyber issues in those two plants. So yes, Q4 will return to normal. I mentioned beforehand that we took exceptional charges related to cyber in Q2 and Q3. We will not do so in Q4.

Thanks, Richard. Moving on to the next set of questions on JLR, how do you see CY26 outlook for North America, Europe, U.K. and China? Can you indicate launch timelines for RR EV? Can you indicate Q3 production of factory inventory, and is the production going to be around 110,000 and I think some commentary around incentives in the U.S.?

So, I've tried to cover demand generally. China is definitely the most challenging market at the moment. The rest of them are okay, but not a lot better than okay. I think I would say. Where's that question disappeared to? Sorry, if you could keep it up on screen that would really help me. Just hold on Richard. Just a minute.

Okay. Well, I'll tell you what, let me go into product launches. No, here we go. I'll wait.

PB Balaji

One second, Richard. Just hold on now.

That's all right. I'll hold it. I'm trying to see if I can find any questions for Shailesh and Dhiman.

I'll take the next question.

Yeah, go for it. Pick it up.

Shailesh, the next question coming your way; for India, how much was the commodity impact expectation for Q4? What was the blended price hike in January? Can you indicate the blended discounts for per vehicle in Q3? What is the current outstanding volumes for Sierra and what would be the current capacity? Will March capacity be at 15,000 units?

There are multiple questions. Can you just -- just go one by one, please?

First question, how much is the commodity impact expectation for Q4?

So, we can't give guidance of what the commodity expectation was for Q4, but generally we have been seeing even in the last few quarters it has been about 1.7% to 2% of our revenue. We are still assessing what is going to be the impact in Q4. What was the next question?

What was the blended price hike taken in January?

We haven't taken any price hike in January. We are yet to take, but in February, we are going to take. The exact percentage increase we are going to announce whenever we take it. Can you indicate blended discounts per vehicle in Q3? Blended discount would be, somewhere around 3.5% to 4% of our revenue. And also, that's not all the consumer discount, it also includes the industrial deals.

What is the current outstanding booking for Sierra? What would be the current capacity and will we be increasing the capacity to 15,000 units a month by March?

Yes, we can't share with you the current status of the bookings, but I can clearly tell you that 70,000 is what we had announced on 16th December. It's, of course, in six digits. As far as the capacity is concerned and ramp up, I think in Jan we were able to supply about 7,000 units and the deliveries started only from 16 th Jan. So, we are clearly in a ramp up phase and the first, even before I talk about in-house ramp up, the first level problem is, on the supply ramp up from the suppliers itself. And also, there is a clear signal that one is seeing that industry volumes have also increased from 350,000 to nearly 420,000 a month in the last three-four months we have been seeing. And therefore, at Tier 1 to Tier 3 supplier level, especially , let's say, for example, castings and all, we are seeing that there is general capacity constraint that is coming. So, we are working on enhancing the capacities and ramping up the supplies from the suppliers. In-house capacity ramp up is happening to the extent of capacity, which has been dedicated to Sierra in our Sanand 2 factory. But we are also increasing the capacity further in two phases in the next five to six months. And therefore, the waiting period, which today would be, say, around six to seven months, should progressively come down as we ramp up and further ramp up with the enhanced capacity in the next five to six months. So, that's broadly the commentary on the status of Sierra, bookings and capacity ramp up.

And move on to the next question. That's from Kapil. How much PLI was accounted in the quarter and what was the percentage of the portfolio getting PLI? So, Kapil, I think we put that in the IR deck, the total PLI for the Q3 was about Rs. 361 Cr and Rs. 573 Cr for year-to-date in the first nine months. And about 40% -45% of our revenues are eligible for PLI incentives and that's what we are accruing and that should go up even more when we move to Harrier docking. Shailesh, I'll direct the next question to you as well, I think current booking numbers, I think Shailesh already answered the question on bookings and capacity for Sierra. The next question is on how to look at guidance for demand on Harrier and Safari volumes post the 1.5 litr e petrol launch, how are we thinking on Curvv volumes post the Sierra launch? And how do you see growth outlook for domestic PV industry and Tata Motors for next quarter and FY27, how does the product pipeline post Sierra look like?

Okay, the first question was on?

First question was on how do you think of the demand for Harrier Harrier, so yes, Harrier, I think petrol is going to - indications basis, the bookings that we have, which has been flowing is about 30% to 35% of our volume should come from petrol. Right now, we are again on the ramp up phase, because as I said that there is common engine sharing between Sierra and Safari, so we are distributing in a balanced way the engine supply. So, again it's more of capacity side issue, which I think we will be able to overcome in the coming months. So, strong bookings, extremely strong, strong bookings we are getting for Harrier and what we are realizing that these customers were only looking for petrol, there is no overlap with diesel or electric is what we see. As far as Curvv is concerned, there are certain interventions that we are taking on the product and we are particularly seeing, December onwards we saw that there has been uptake in the demand for this Rs.15 lakh to Rs.20 lakh segment of EVs in which Curvv .ev falls and we have seen a significant spurt of demand there. And I would say that Curvv is a car, where it's a unique design, first time being seen in India and therefore, it's going to take time just like we had seen for Nexon, when you bring a new design, it takes time for design to be assimilated and accepted in the market, so we are quite optimistic about Curvv going forward progressively increasing in volumes. What was next question, Dhiman?

So, the next question was how are we looking at demand?

Yes, 2026 and Q4.

Yeah.

So, the first month of quarter four was about 14% growth for the industry, we were at about 46%, we clearly see that the growth of industry in Q4 will be around 13% to 14% kind of a zone. We should be 40%, roughly that kind of a growth rate. So, we expect that for FY26, therefore, the industry would grow by about 8% to 9%, rough estimate, I would say. Whereas for us, we should be somewhere in mid-teens. So, it would be a double-digit industry-leading growth for us.

Okay. And if you could take the last question, Shailesh, how does the product pipeline look post- Sierra?

Yeah. So, I think this is something which you will have to wait for. There are clear nameplates, three nameplates that we have talked about in the next 4-5 years. But beyond Sierra, we are also going to get a lot of refreshes, model-year interventions, and also the mid-cycle enhancements for the current portfolio also. And of course, there are EVs, which are going to come, this Punch EV, which is going to come very soon. You have Sierra EV, which is going to get launched. And as I said, mid -cycle enhancements and new launches, which we'll talk about later on.

Okay. Shailesh, one last question before I move back to Richard. How do we assess EU trade deals implications for the India auto sector? Does it potentially cap Tata Motors premiumization trajectory in the UV segment? And conversely, are we revisiting localization strategies for the JLR portfolio? Okay. So, first part I'll answer. We have very less details about the European trade deal. But basis, whatever we are reading and whatever information we have, we clearly see that it's not going to impact in any big way as far as our strategy and journey of premiumization is concerned. Any player, who has to compete effectively in India will have to localize with whatever we are reading in terms of the duty rates, which will still remain. So, there's no impact immediately for sure. But over a period of time also, not localizing in India will have a difficult strategy from a strategy perspective for any player. By just exporting, it will be very difficult. But yes, it does give, some flexibility for big players from Europe to experiment with few models in India before they commit to investments here, is what we would say.

Building on Shailesh's point as far as JLR localization strategy is concerned, you recollect we already have localized Range Rover and Range Rover Sport here in India in terms of CKD manufacturing. That strategy, obviously, from a commercial perspective, whatever makes sense is what we will do. So, we will continue to see how the thing evolves. Before the EU deal does anyway, there's already the UK deal. That's what the first one that's primacy for us, which we need to see how best we can leverage it to the best of our ability. So, very much work in progress on that front and we'll talk more about it in the Investor Day.

Yes. I think moving on to the next question, I will go back to Richard. any insight on product launches along with rough timelines in FY27 for JLR, especially Range Rover EV, and Jaguar ramp -up.

Yes. Of course. So, look, plans are always adjusting, but as of now, we're going to launch the Range Rover Electric this year and start delivering to customers. And we'll also unveil the new production Jaguar car this year. And finally, also unveil the first car off our EMA platform. That's a unique new model from the Range Rover family that's going to get built at Halewood. So, we are approaching a really, really busy launch period for JLR in the next couple of years. Again, we'll give you more details on timings etc. at the Investor Day.

Yes. Moving on to the next question from Binay. I think some of these questions have already been taken up by Richard. Our next quarter is going to be a normal quarter for JLR. I think on PLI incentives accrued for the quarter and year -to-date have also been answered. I think a few questions from Binay and Gunjan on EV margins. I think the EV margins move up and down depending on the rate at which PLI is being accrued. And it's not a normal rate. So, I will kind of request you to reach out to the IR team and we can take you through the details. Yes. Richard, next question, I think you've partly answered, but if you could take this up on, can you cover how we should think about VME and warranty costs, which have continued to go up?

Yes. So VME, I think, is an industry trend at the moment. As I have mentioned, there are, the China market is shrinking for many OEMs and that is increasing pressure in other markets for all OEMs to try and access the sales. So, I mentioned beforehand, I do think it is near peaking, but it may have a little bit further to go over the six months. So, nothing more to say other than that at this point. Okay. Next question from Nishit, how are the dealer inventory levels across markets? Are they much below normal given that we've not been able to supply? Next question, I think VME questions, you have already answered a couple of times. Warranty expenses remained high at 7.7% of sales, any quarterly related one-offs there? And how could you sustain it in the next one or two years? And the last question, how should one look at sustainable EBIT margin levels between FY27 and FY28?

Okay, so I'll try and cover this. Dealer inventory levels, certainly in some markets such as the U.S. are fairly low at the moment. I was in the U.S. earlier this year and there are large numbers of dealers, who normally would have vehicles all over their front lots, where it was fairly empty. So, dealer inventory in the U.S. is tight. We are filling it now, but it has been fairly tight as we work to basically refill our supply chain following cyber. That is temporary and it will relieve itself during Q4. There was a question I can remember on warranty, and yes, there were one-offs in this quarter to the tune of c. GBP 100 million related to one -offs in campaigns and buyback provisions in the USA. So, we are not running at a normalized rate of 7.7%. It is a lot lower than that and we intend these one -offs to stop as quickly as we can.

Moving on to the next question, I think from Rakesh, I think first half of the question is kind of already taken. Moving on to the next part, can you please update on Freelander rollout plan? It appears it is going to be sold outside China as well, and which all markets and the royalty income arrangement?

Okay, so Freelander is also going to start production I think this year. It will be initially for China only, but when we announced Freelander, we did say it would be available for global rollout over time, and that I think is still the case. It will be managed by our joint venture in China between ourselves and Chery, and look, obviously there is a royalty arrangement within that. I am absolutely not going to comment on what that is. However, we are very much expecting that vehicle to be, or that vehicle and vehicles, because it won't end up as being just one to be a big success.

Okay. Thanks, Richard. The next question, also your way, EBIT margin guidance was 5% to 7% before the cyber-attack. What would the range be possible ahead? Our key models, Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, and Defender are in niche premium categories. Its competitive intensity from Chinese OEMs high in these categories in North America, Europe, and China, and media reports indicate Chery Automobile is in early-stage negotiations to use JLR production capacities in UK and any comment on that?

So, the second one. The second one, we don't comment on speculative reports, so wouldn't want to comment on that. Richard, the first one, I'll give it back to you.

Yeah, so absolutely right on that. So, EBIT margin 5% to 7% before the cyber -attack. Always difficult to say. I would suspect we would have been close to the bottom end of that range before cyber. The fact that foreign exchange, a little bit of VME etc have moved to adverse to us quite significantly over that period means I think we would have been around the bottom end of that. In relation to Range Rover or Range Rover Sport and Defender, look, Chinese OEMs are coming, and they're coming globally. So far outside of China, there hasn't been that much of an impact in terms of the segments of the markets in which we operate. Because the one thing Chinese OEMs do not have is brands. And brands is where we are focusing , our unique selling point, along with the capabilities of the vehicles, which sort of emphasize those brands. So, there's two choices. Either the world goes completely protectionist, in which case they're protected from Chinese cars, but with considerable disadvantages, or it goes free trade. JLR prefers a free trade model. It is a better model for JLR, and we welcome competition. It will force us to be better. So, are we concerned? Yes. Are we paying close attention? Yes. Are we frightened? No.

Okay. Shailesh, next question from Kapil, your way. We mentioned that margins will improve from Q4 FY26, led by Sierra launch and price hike in Jan-26. How much price hike have we taken? Can you please give an update if you are on track to improve margins in light of commodity pressures?

So, as I said in one of the earlier replies that we are going to take price increase this month. And we will be able to tell you the extent of price increase whenever we take it. Sierra, of course, has enhanced our margin. Also, the VME, which was very high in earlier quarters, has come down. So, you can clearly see while the commodity price pressure remains. But as a result of all these actions and the tailwinds that we have in quarter four with very low inventories at the start of quarter four, so you can definitely expect a much better margin as compared to what you had seen in Q3..

Thank you. And Shailesh, I'll hand it back over to you to take the last question for the day. From Kapil, is there a big change in first -time buyers for Tata Motors and for the industry after GST cut, which segment of cars are first-time buyers going for more?

I cannot give you offhand what has been the increase in first-time buyers, but yes, there is a delta increase that we have seen in first-time buyers. Maybe separately we can ask the Investor Relation team to give that information to you. But the segments which have really responded well, post-GST 2.0, I also mentioned it seems, is the subcompact SUV and the compact SUV segment, which has seen growth much higher than the average growth that we have seen of 20% in this segment. Maybe these two segments would be more upwards of 30%, or maybe 25%, 26% or so. So, these are the two segments, which I'll say in the less than four-meter category which has seen significant traction. Post GST 2.0, I think mid-size SUV segment also has seen a growth better than the average growth of the industry, but that is also to do with the new launches. So, it's a combined effect of new launches as well as general reduction in GST rate.

Thank you. Thank you, Shailesh, and that brings us to the end of the Q3 FY26 call. See you on the call next quarter, and in between, you should hear from us informing you about the details of the Investor Day in June. Thank you and have a good evening. Note – this transcript has been edited for readability & any inadvertent errors.