JLR's case against the BYD Ti7, the £47,995 seven-seat SUV called a Land Rover Defender copy, reaches a Hague court after bailiffs seized files from two BYD offices in the Netherlands. Here's what we know.
Photo: BYD
Jaguar Land Rover's fight with BYD over the Ti7, the boxy seven-seat SUV that critics have called a Defender clone, has moved from car magazines to a courtroom. Court-ordered bailiffs acting for JLR searched two BYD offices in the Netherlands in August and carried away digital records, according to The Sunday Times, which broke the story over the weekend. A court in The Hague was scheduled to take up the case today, November 11.
At stake is more than bragging rights. The BYD Ti7 goes on sale in the UK in January at £47,995 (about $64,000), more than £20,000 below a comparable plug-in Land Rover Defender 110. JLR suspects BYD bought a Defender, took it apart, and carried protected technology into its own SUV. BYD has not publicly answered that claim. Here is what is known, and what is not.
According to The Times, as cited by Auto Express, CarExpert and Top Gear, bailiffs operating under a court order searched BYD premises in Schiedam, near Rotterdam, and Hoofddorp, near Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, in August 2026. They seized digital records and documents tied to the development of the Ti7.
The purpose, according to those reports, was to secure files before they could be altered or deleted. Autoevolution, citing The Guardian, reports that JLR asked for the raid to be fast-tracked for exactly that reason. Dutch outlet TopGear.nl said the bailiffs acted with a judge's permission and that the seized data could serve as evidence in a lawsuit against BYD.
None of the reports name the exact legal procedure. Dutch law does give holders of intellectual property rights a way to ask a court for a pre-emptive evidence seizure, in which a bailiff secures material that is then held until a judge decides who may see it. The reports describe a process that fits that pattern, but neither JLR nor the court has confirmed it.
This is not, at least on the evidence so far, a simple "it looks the same" complaint. The reports say JLR suspects BYD engineers bought a production Defender, stripped it down, and studied it during development of the Ti7, and that protected technology may have ended up in the finished vehicle.
That distinction matters. Every carmaker buys and tears down rival products; benchmarking is routine and legal. As TopGear.nl and InsideEVs both note, it only becomes a legal problem if protected intellectual property is copied. The Hague court is expected to decide which seized material JLR may use and whether there is enough basis for the case to go to trial.
JLR has declined to say more. A spokesperson told Top Gear that "JLR does not comment on ongoing legal proceedings."
Very little in public. A BYD UK spokesperson declined to comment to Auto Express, citing the ongoing legal case. Electrek, citing local reports, says BYD's lawyers called the seizure a "fishing expedition" and argued that too many files were taken. Autoevolution reports that BYD's defense considers the seizure overreaching. BYD has also said, according to Electrek, that it cooperated fully with JLR's requests before the raid.
Nobody outside the courtroom has seen the evidence, and there has been no finding of wrongdoing. As of this writing, no outcome from the November 11 hearing has been reported.
The Ti7 is sold in China under BYD's Fangchengbao brand, where it launched on September 9, 2025, priced from 179,800 to 219,800 yuan (roughly $25,000 to $31,000). In Europe and the UK it wears the BYD badge. Side by side, the resemblance is in the upright, slab-sided silhouette and squared-off tail; the front ends and window lines differ.
| Spec | BYD Ti7 (UK) | Land Rover Defender 110 PHEV |
|---|---|---|
| UK starting price | £47,995 (about $64,000) | More than £20,000 higher |
| Powertrain | 1.5L turbo plus three electric motors (plug-in hybrid) | 2.0L turbo four-cylinder plug-in hybrid |
| System output | 402 hp (408 PS), 0–62 mph in 4.8 sec | About 400 hp |
| Battery | 35.6 kWh BYD Blade (LFP) | Smaller pack |
| Electric-only range (WLTP) | Up to 74 miles | Up to about 31 miles |
| Seats | Seven | Up to six in PHEV form |
| UK deliveries | From January 2027 | On sale now |
Those numbers explain why JLR is paying attention. The Ti7 promises more electric range, an extra row of seats, and similar power for a lot less money. The Defender is Land Rover's best-selling model worldwide, according to CarExpert, and it is the brand's most important profit engine.
Yes, and lost one too. The record is mixed.
The Ineos loss is the more instructive one here. Boxy shapes are hard to own. That may be why, if the reporting is right, JLR is building its case around reverse engineering and technology rather than the Ti7's outline alone.
Chinese brands are winning European buyers on price and battery technology, and BYD is at the front of that push. Legacy carmakers have struggled to match them on cost. Intellectual property law is one of the few tools they have left, and a court-ordered raid on the world's biggest EV maker is an unusually aggressive use of it.
There is also an irony worth noting. JLR itself has a joint venture with Chery, another Chinese carmaker, that is reviving the Freelander name as a separate brand, with a Freelander 8 SUV planned for Europe and the UK.
The bottom line: JLR has gone further than complaining about a lookalike. It has persuaded a Dutch court to let bailiffs seize BYD's internal files over the Ti7, and the case now rests on whether those files show protected Defender technology was used, not on how similar the two SUVs look. BYD calls the seizure a fishing expedition and has not been found to have done anything wrong. The next decision from The Hague will show whether this becomes a full trial or stalls early. Either way, the £47,995 Ti7 is still scheduled to reach UK buyers in January.
Related: BYD Atto 8: the 7-seat electric SUV coming to Europe · BYD's record October 2026 sales · Chinese brands hit a record in Northern Europe
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