Jaguar Land Rover is reported to suspect that BYD took a Land Rover Defender apart to reverse-engineer parts of its technology for the BYD Ti7, a seven-seat plug-in hybrid SUV. Neither company has confirmed the claim on the record. British newspapers reported it, and a court in The Hague is expected to give a preliminary ruling on Nov. 11.
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The dispute turns on whether the Chinese maker copied more than the Defender’s boxy look. According to reports from The Times and The Guardian, as relayed by Motor1, JLR’s case rests on the alleged dismantling and reverse-engineering, and the outcome of the preliminary ruling should determine whether BYD has a case to answer over alleged intellectual-property infringement.
The August raid on BYD offices in the Netherlands
The legal fight began months ago. In August, court-ordered bailiffs seized digital records from BYD premises in Schiedam and Hoofddorp, Netherlands, in what Motor1 describes as a move by JLR to secure material before it could be destroyed. BYD’s lawyers have since called the seizure a “fishing expedition” and argued that too many files were taken, while JLR’s legal advisers accused BYD of obstructing the process, Motor1’s report says.
Both sides have said little in public. BYD’s statement amounted to no comment at this time, and JLR told reporters it does not comment on ongoing legal proceedings. Motor1 did not independently verify the newspaper accounts, and no individual at either company is named in them, so the claims remain allegations from unnamed sources rather than findings by any court. That matters for how the story should be read. A raid, a seizure and a hearing show that JLR persuaded a Dutch court to act, and nothing in the public record yet shows what the seized files contain or whether any Defender was in fact taken apart. Those questions are exactly what the proceedings are meant to test, and neither side has released documents that would answer them.
The Ti7 against the Defender 110 on paper
Top Gear’s Aug. 3 pricing report lists the Ti7’s single Excellence all-wheel-drive trim at 47,995 pounds in Britain, with seven seats as standard. Its powertrain pairs a 1.5-liter turbo four-cylinder with a 35.6 kWh battery and two electric motors for 402 horsepower, and Top Gear says 0 to 62 mph takes 4.8 seconds, while electric range is put at 74 miles. The price gap is the commercial reason the comparison bites: a buyer who wants seven seats and a square-rigged silhouette can pay roughly 20,000 pounds less for the BYD. A seven-seat Defender 110 starts at 68,465 pounds before options, about 20,470 pounds more.
The Ti7 has been sold in China since September 2025 as the Fangchengbao Ti7, and UK deliveries are expected to begin in January 2027. In an earlier report from May, Top Gear said BYD’s British arm had confirmed the SUV for the UK under a BYD badge and that it is longer than a Defender 110 while shorter than the 130. The magazine described a plug-in hybrid with all-wheel drive, a 4.8-second sprint to 62 mph and seats for seven, aimed at larger families and active buyers, which is the same customer a Defender 110 targets.
The German magazine Auto Bild puts a sharper figure on that: 5.15 meters in length, about 13 centimeters longer than the Defender 110, at 1.96 meters wide against the Land Rover’s 2.01 meters. The Auto Bild comparison also says the boxy shape, straight window line, metallic front underrun guard and rear spare-wheel recess echo the Defender, while the headlights, spare-wheel design and interior differ. The magazine adds that the Ti7 carries a 15.6-inch screen, larger than the Defender’s, and that its price in China starts near 22,900 euros, a level Europe will not see. Look-alike styling is not the same as copied engineering, which is why the court case leans on the dismantling claim.
Why a design claim alone was a hard route for JLR
JLR has been through this kind of argument before. In August 2020 the High Court dismissed its appeal over trademarking the shape of the Defender, upholding the Intellectual Property Office’s refusal, according to a Business Desk report on the case brought against the maker of the Ineos Grenadier. That loss may help explain why the BYD case is framed around reverse-engineering of technology rather than looks alone.
Motor1 also recalls that JLR won a three-year legal battle in 2019 against China’s Jiangling Motor Corporation over an alleged Range Rover Evoque copy. The Hague proceeding is a different kind of test, because the preliminary ruling decides only whether BYD has a case to answer, not whether copying occurred. If the Nov. 11 ruling goes JLR’s way, the contested records seized in August become central evidence. If it does not, the Ti7 stays on course for its January UK launch. Either way, a preliminary ruling is only the first step, and the final shape of the dispute will take longer to emerge than the Dutch court’s first decision.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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