Jaguar Chief: The Company Is “At a Crossroads”
Add Jaguar to the list of companies that announced they’d be going fully electric, then ran into a wall of consumer resistance.
‘“It’s been hugely frustrating—saying we’re going all EV then ‘nothing’.” That’s the admission from Jaguar’s new managing director Rawdon Glover about the brand’s current holding pattern of no new cars for five years amid a plan to go all electric… and extremely upmarket,” said a story in Top Gear.
The publication says, “We’ll see a glimpse of Jaguar’s new design direction and ‘brand world’ this winter, with an angular four-door fastback expected first, before a pair of SUVs. Glover, who took up the MD gig in March 2023, says the production car will offer a range of 430 miles.”
“Jaguar is at a crossroads,” said Rawdon. “Then-JLR CEO Thierry Bolloré said at the time [the plan to go all-EV was announced] that Jaguar had a choice to elevate itself out of the premium space [into being a super-luxury brand] and that choice has since been validated.
“We decided on this structure in 2021, but cars don’t appear overnight,” Rawdon told Top Gear. “We need to take [the brand] back to when we made beautiful desirable cars, not in huge numbers and not having huge numbers [of models] in the portfolio. Until recently we were up to six or seven models.”
The future is “not just some new cars, it’s a complete brand reinvention,” the Jag boss insists. “With every decision we make, we ask ‘is this going to make people think about Jaguar the way we need them to?’ If it doesn’t make them want to pay £120,000 ($157,500), we don’t do it.”
With no new product to sell after the F-Pace disappears, he expects to lose some dealers. “We’ve had to do some very painful things, but this is a long term plan.”
After reading the article and the comments, I have to agree that this may well be the end of the road for Jaguar. Why can’t those in management realize the customer is what makes or breaks a business. Really sad to see this happen to a company that made so many desirable, beautiful and capable cars. Sad indeed.
Everyone I’ve spoken to about this believes Jaguar is making a fatal mistake by going all electric and upmarket. Public resistance to electric cars is becoming increasingly obvious; few makers will be able to survive without ICE or hybrid cars in their lineup for the foreseeable future. As for going upmarket, that’s not going to work either. People have always bought Jaguars because they LOOK like they cost a fortune, not because they really do. There are plenty of $150K cars out there that most people will take over a Jaguar in a heartbeat. I’ve loved Jaguars since I saw my first E-type at the age of eight; watching the company commit suicide like this is heartbreaking. I’m keeping my F-Type forever.
What a huge mistake, throwing away a hundred years of memorable cars such as the C, D and E Types, the racing successes , the Supercharged XKR’s, the beautiful designs . What a legacy. You should never throw away such a legacy but find a way to build on it. What a disaster.