Copycat Defender? JLR has raided BYD’s offices over the boxy Ti7 SUV

Court-ordered bailiffs operating on behalf of JLR have raided BYD’s offices in The Netherlands in an ongoing legal row over the similarity of the new BYD Ti7 and the Land Rover Defender 110.

According to The Times the raid was conducted in August, with JLR looking to find documents relating to the stripping down and reverse engineering of a Defender in the seven-seat Ti7’s development.

BYD’s boxy SUV – which we labelled a “Chinese Defender clone” back in August (oops) – is set to go on sale in the UK in January 2027, with prices starting at just £47,995 complete with a plug-in hybrid powertrain. A seven-seat Defender 110 is over £20,000 more, and you can only have the PHEV with a maximum of six seats. See why JLR is worried?

“JLR does not comment on ongoing legal proceedings,” said a spokesperson from JLR, which also happens to have a joint venture with BYD’s Chinese rival Chery. That tie-up originally allowed Chery to build Jaguars, the Range Rover Evoque and the Land Rover Discovery Sport in China, but it’s now giving the Chinese megacorp the rights to revive the Freelander as its own brand, with the 8 SUV set to be sold in Europe and the UK further down the line.

Anyway, we’re told that a Dutch court will decide this week whether BYD has a case to answer over the alleged intellectual property theft. Reckon the looks are too close a match?