2019-2024 Land Rover and Jaguar Recall: Loss of Drive Power from DC-DC Converter Failure

Within 10 seconds of the DC-DC converter failing on a mild-hybrid Land Rover or Jaguar, the instrument cluster shows a red "Stop Safely Electrical Fault Detected" warning. The 12-volt system has stopped charging at that point, and the car is running on whatever the 12-volt battery holds. Lane keep assist can switch off and suspension and stability control fault warnings may appear, and then the gearbox shifts itself into neutral with a fault message. The engine keeps running for a period after that, then shuts down, and some time later the battery can no longer hold the exterior lights.

NHTSA campaign 26V599, filed September 17, 2026, covers 23,677 of those vehicles in the United States across nine models and both brands. Jaguar Land Rover's internal number is E008. The company puts the estimated percentage with the defect at 100 percent.

The campaign expands 26V248, filed April 17, 2026, which covered 170,169 mild hybrids fitted with what JLR calls the phase 1 converter. The September population is the cars built with the phase 2 converter through the end of the 2024 model year, and no VIN sits in both campaigns.

The Issue

A 48-volt mild hybrid carries two electrical systems. A belt-driven starter-generator charges a 48-volt battery, and a DC-DC converter steps that supply down to 12 volts to charge the conventional battery and feed the lights, screens, control modules and transmission control. There is no separate alternator. When the converter stops, the 12-volt side has no charging source, and the 12-volt systems drop out as the battery drains.

JLR's April filing blamed the first wave of failures on an internal fault in the converter's boost control microchip. Five part numbers were named, three from LG Innotek's plant in Poland and two from Yazaki. Between May and July 2026, JLR engineers stress-tested later production converters to induce the same failure and could not make it happen consistently.

On July 14, 2026, the investigation moved its main effort from hardware to software. The company assigned a dedicated team to read every line of code on the affected vehicles for changes, alone or in combination, that could alter how the converter behaves. Under high electrical demand, the vehicle's load-balancing software does not manage the draw well enough, and the converter can be pushed into a current overload and stop. Separately, a software bug can take the converter offline at start-up under conditions JLR has not described; the filing says the real-world likelihood of that second failure "was not fully confirmed."

The component named in the recall is "vehicle load balancing software," with Jaguar Land Rover Limited itself, at its Whitley, Coventry, address, listed as its manufacturer. The "description of the cause" line in the filing is blank.

Affected Models

Vehicle	Model years	Production dates	Plant	Units
Land Rover Range Rover Sport	2019-2024	Mar 21, 2019 - Jun 28, 2024	Solihull	10,973
Land Rover Defender	2020-2024	Feb 4, 2020 - Jun 28, 2024	Nitra	8,100
Land Rover Range Rover	2020-2024	Feb 3, 2020 - Jun 28, 2024	Solihull	3,849
Land Rover Discovery	2021-2024	Oct 2, 2020 - Jun 28, 2024	Nitra	552
Jaguar F-Pace	2021-2024	Sep 15, 2020 - Dec 4, 2023	Graz	79
Land Rover Range Rover Velar	2021-2024	Sep 17, 2020 - Jan 4, 2024	Solihull	76
Land Rover Range Rover Evoque	2020-2024	Feb 18, 2019 - Jun 20, 2024	Halewood	35
Jaguar E-Pace	2021-2024	Jan 14, 2021 - Oct 29, 2024	Graz	10
Land Rover Discovery Sport	2020-2024	Jul 18, 2019 - Jun 24, 2024	Halewood	3
Total	2019-2024			23,677

The population is mild hybrids only, and only those with the phase 2 converter. Cars with the earlier converter are covered by 26V248 under JLR campaign numbers D126 and H575 and are excluded here. Non-hybrid gasoline and diesel versions, plug-in hybrids and 2025 model year vehicles are outside the campaign. JLR says it identified the vehicles "through a combination of field data analysis and AI modelling."

The Range Rover Sport count of 10,973 spans two generations, the L494 through 2022 and the L461 from 2023, and the Range Rover's 3,849 crosses the L405 to L460 changeover, which JLR's own 26V248 dealer material places in the 2022 model year. The Defender population covers the L663 from its first 2020 model year. Those three models account for 22,922 of the 23,677 vehicles; the two Jaguars, the Evoque and the Discovery Sport together add 127.

Chronology and Investigation

JLR's Product Safety and Compliance Committee first reviewed rising warranty claims for converter failures in September 2024 and concluded the issue did not pose an unreasonable safety risk, because the symptoms progress gradually and the driver gets warnings along the way. More reports arrived through 2025, and an engineering task force was assigned. From November 2025, when JLR regained system access after a cyber incident, through March 2026, that group ran hardware-in-the-loop tests, physical tests and simulations.

In early 2026 JLR briefed several government agencies on the field events. On April 7, 2026, NHTSA told the company it viewed the failure as a safety matter rather than a customer-satisfaction one. JLR's decision forum met on April 10 and agreed, and 26V248 was filed a week later for 170,169 vehicles with no remedy yet defined. NHTSA's record for that campaign now lists a central software update as the fix, with interim letters mailed June 17, 2026.

After the phase 2 hardware testing came up empty in July, the code review and a predictive AI model built through July and August became the main lines of investigation. On September 8, 2026, the committee heard that the model had been trained on a small, well-documented group of vehicles and validated at larger scale, and that it predicted phase 2 cars up to the end of the 2024 model year would fail the way the phase 1 cars had. The start-up bug was reported at the same meeting. The decision forum ordered the recall on September 10, limited to the markets where 26V248 had already been issued, and the Part 573 report reached NHTSA on September 17.

Reported Incidents

JLR has received 393 claims and field reports in the United States for this population between April 2024 and September 2026, with no accidents, injuries or fires reported. The phase 1 campaign carried 5,952 claims between July 2019 and April 2026 across a population seven times larger.

The 393 reports against 23,677 vehicles work out to about one for every 60 cars over two and a half years, and JLR still estimates that every vehicle in the population carries the defect. The fix is software, and the load-balancing strategy it replaces is on every car, whether or not the converter has tripped yet.

Remedy and Notification

Dealers will update the vehicle software at no charge. The new code does three things: it balances electrical load across the vehicle's systems at times of high demand, it corrects the start-up bug, and it adds a limp-home mode that gives a warning and then reduces power if the converter goes offline for any reason.

Dealer notification is scheduled for October 1, 2026, and interim owner letters go out on or before November 13, 2026. Those letters describe the risk; a second letter follows once the remedy software is released, and JLR lists the remedy notification as a phased recall with no date attached. The date the VINs become searchable on NHTSA.gov is blank in the filing. NHTSA's record marks the update as not over-the-air, so it requires a dealer visit.

JLR has issued no do-not-drive or park-outside advisory. Owners can reach Land Rover customer service at 800-637-6837 and should reference recall E008. Owners with a vehicle in the April campaign should quote D126 or H575 instead.

Symptoms to Watch For Before the Converter Fails

JLR's filing lists the warnings roughly in the order they appear.

A red "Stop Safely Electrical Fault Detected" message. This appears within 10 seconds of the converter quitting, and it is the point at which the advice in JLR's interim letters to 26V248 owners applies: stop the vehicle safely when instructed to and seek qualified assistance.

Lane keep assist switching itself off. Named first among the warnings the filing says may follow as the 12-volt battery drains, in no fixed order with the two below.

Suspension Fault and Stability Control Fault warnings. The air suspension and stability systems are 12-volt loads and drop out as the voltage falls.

A Gearbox Fault message and an unrequested shift into neutral. The car stops transmitting drive at this point, although the engine is still running.

The center screen and air conditioning going dark. These switch off while the engine is still running and the exterior lights are still on.

The engine shutting down, then the lights. The filing puts these last, "some time later," once the battery can no longer sustain exterior lighting.

A converter that goes offline at start-up because of the software bug produces the same symptom as one that overloads on the road: no 12-volt charging, and the same red warning.

How Long Will the Recall Repair Take?

The remedy is a software update on the vehicle's central modules, with no parts to replace. JLR has published no labor time for E008. JLR's dealer material for 26V248 listed its repair time as "TBC." By our estimate, a flash of this scope is a few hours of dealer time, most of it waiting on the modules to program, and the constraint is the release date of the remedy software rather than the work itself.

Bottom Line

The converter failure is slow and it announces itself, which is why JLR treated it as a warranty problem from September 2024 until NHTSA called it a safety one in April 2026. The 393 field reports in this population with no crashes support the company's original read on how the symptoms progress. The risk sits with the driver who sees the red warning and keeps going, because the sequence ends with a car in neutral and, later, a car with no lights.

Until the remedy software ships, treat the "Stop Safely" message as the end of the trip. Pull over, turn the car off while the 12-volt battery still has charge, and arrange a tow. Neither filing says a converter replaced under warranty takes a vehicle out of the population, and the remedy is the software update.

Find your Land Rover recall information: https://www.landroverusa.com/ownership/vin-recall.html. Jaguar owners: https://www.jaguar.com/en-us/jdx/ownership/vin-recall.html

Recall 26V599 (September 2026) is the phase 2 follow-on to 26V248 (April 2026, 170,169 units, JLR D126/H575). The two populations are disjoint: 26V248 covers the phase 1 DC-DC converter with a boost control microchip fault; 26V599 covers phase 2 converters through the end of the 2024 model year, where JLR's investigation found the vehicle load-balancing software, plus a start-up bug, rather than the hardware.