Once again, recent news events prove that I am an extremely powerful sorcerer. Barely a month after I openly wondered if Jaguar was a dead brand walking, the British luxury icon is out here hyping a big new reinvention that will be all-electric, “exuberant and fearless,” and also more expensive. Can this upcoming investment save a brand that’s been relegated to the “Where are they now?” file in recent years? Also on tap for today’s morning news roundup: Elon Musk had a crappy week, the auto sector is showing signs of slowing down a bit and Stellantis is also looking into e-fuels.
Jaguar’s Badly-Needed Comeback Takes Shape
While everyone in Great Britain was getting just dreadfully upset about the news that Land Rover would downplay that central name to focus on the Defender, Range Rover and Discovery brands, the Galaxy Brained among us wondered what the hell was happening to Jaguar. You know, the brand that spent much of the 2010s trying unsuccessfully to beat BMW at scale and last gave us a new car when Beyoncé’s Lemonade was the hottest album out there. Yes, really. It’s been a minute.
Don’t get me wrong; I liked a lot of Jaguar’s efforts in the last decade and gave them high marks at the time. I was kind of lukewarm on the midsize XE, but I always respected the larger XF (especially in Sportbrake form; it’s incredible that car was sold over here at all) and F-Pace crossover. Plus, the F-Type sports car may now seem old enough to buy its own cigarettes, but I’d still cancel a lot of plans to spend an afternoon in one.
The problem is, beating BMW at scale didn’t work; the car-heavy lineup didn’t click in an SUV-dominated world, particularly when buyers could get plenty of those by walking a few feet over to the Land Rover side of the showroom; and the early electric lead it had with the I-Pace never really went anywhere. So the Jaguar we have today is kind of stagnant, struggling for relevance and replete with dealers ready to cash out.
Does Jag throw in the towel, or does it put on its big-boy pants and get to work? It seems the latter, and we’re finally finding out how, according to Automotive News. The brand had reporters over to the company’s headquarters in Gaydon last week and it told them the plan is to go all-electric and much more upmarket, like Bentley. Jaguar will kick this off with a battery-powered four-door that seems tentatively dubbed the Grand Tourer:
The car will be the brand’s fastest model to date and will cost more than 100,000 pounds ($124,200) as Jaguar moves more upscale into the ultraluxury space of brands such as Bentley. It will have a range of up to 700 km (320 miles).
[…] Future Jaguars will tap into the iconic styling of models such as the E-Type but they will be radically reimagined, [Gerry McGovern, JLR’s Chief Creative Officer] said. “They will shock and they will be fearless,” he said.
While I reserve the right to roll my eyes at the idea of yet another six-figure luxury EV sedan/crossover/touring car whatever—the really interesting stuff is happening in the cheap electric space these days—my cynicism gives way to excitement over whatever Jaguar has in store here. A high-performance, almost E-Type-inspired EV to herald the brand’s comeback? Count me in. And we know from the I-Pace that this company can pull off EVs when it tries. [Editor’s Note: I dunno; this is becoming a crowded segment. It’ll be tough (perhaps more so than ever) for Jag to stand out. -DT].
The GT will be the first of three all-new electric Jaguars, likely part of a smaller but more expensive and more focused lineup of cars. I’m rooting for Jag here. Let’s hope they can pull this off. Not every brand is going to survive this electric and digital transformation but I’d rather live in a world with Jaguar than not.
Elon Musk Has Had A Rough Week
At this point, I do think it’s unwise to bet against Tesla. The playbook it pioneered is being copied by the entire auto industry, which is something I certainly didn’t see coming back when Jaguar was spending all of its time picking fights with BMW, for example. But the guy up top at Tesla can be both its greatest asset and its most dangerous liability.
Last week was a garbage one for Elon Musk, as The Verge recaps. That meant weak Q1 results at Tesla; a SpaceX rocket explosion; and an utterly disastrous and widely mocked launch of paid “blue check” verification at Twitter. (If you have no idea what the latter is, I envy you.) From that story:
Elon Musk’s coffers became a smidge lighter on Thursday after his net worth plummeted by $12.6 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, the biggest drop in Musk’s wealth so far this year. That fall comes on the heels of a fairly tumultuous 24 hours for SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter, three of the largest businesses under Musk’s leadership.
Don’t you just hate it when you lose $12.6 billion in a matter of days?
Now, I’ll be fair here. The SpaceX explosion was unfortunate, but rockets explode all the time during the test phases like this and even NASA said as much. And Tesla’s revenue declines were rough, but also expected given the rapid-fire price cuts and it was one of the only cards Tesla had to play to keep demand up with its aging lineup and rapidly encroaching competition. Turns out that when you charge less for a product, you generally make less money. Maybe I should’ve been an MBA.
But the Twitter stuff remains a huge unforced error on Musk’s part. After saying he’d buy the company, he apparently only went through with it because he had to, and rather than install a like-minded CEO to report to him, he chose to get into the weeds himself, personally, and spend his time doing dumb stuff with blue checks, among other things.
So what does this have to do with cars, you ask? Well, a bunch of Tesla investors are getting upset about all of this, perhaps more loudly than they ever have before. Bloomberg reports those investors sent a letter (which you can read here) to the board and want to meet to discuss Musk’s performance:
The 17 shareholders, who hold more than $1.5 billion of Tesla stock, said Musk is distracted by his commitments to other companies and must be reined in, according to an open letter they sent to Chairwoman Robyn Denholm and Director Ira Ehrenpreis on Friday. They want the board to come up with a plan to do so and seek to remove directors too closely tied to the CEO.
“There is collective frustration,” said Ivan Frishberg, the chief sustainability officer for Amalgamated Bank, a union-owned bank that has 722,070 shares in Tesla across its various funds. “Over the last year, it became quite clear that Tesla suffers from a governance problem.”
[…] “It is unprecedented to be a CEO and also be running two other companies at the same time,” said Courtney Wicks, executive director of Investor Advocates for Social Justice, which represents several faith-based investors. “I can’t imagine any other board allowing a CEO to have as many outside business activities.”
Musk is no stranger to overworking and stretching himself thin. That, and insane deadlines on wildly unrealistic timelines, are some hallmarks of his leadership. But he’s still human after all and he’s not getting any younger. All of that, coupled with the infamous relentless micromanagement of his businesses, is making people wonder if he’s taking his eye off the ball too much at Tesla as the EV competition heats up across the board (There’s a whole section of that open letter titled “The Board has failed to ensure that the CEO is appropriately focused on Tesla.”)
A ‘Darkening’ Outlook For Autos Could Spell Bad Economic News
It’s hard to describe, or understand, the economic weirdness we’ve been in for a while now. Post-pandemic supply chain issues are still prevalent, and layoffs have been rampant in numerous sectors including tech and media, but there are few obvious traditional indicators we’re in a full-blown recession. And those who predicted one in recent years haven’t been proven right yet. Hopefully, they’re wrong and they’ll stay wrong.
But auto sales, along with home sales, are a good measure of strength for any economy. If people aren’t buying cars and they aren’t buying homes, you’re generally boned. Bloomberg also looked at Tesla’s declining sales, rising auto loan default rates and slower car purchases across the board, and folks, it just doesn’t seem great:
In recent months, Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle maker has repeatedly cut prices to lure reluctant buyers. Auto-lending giant Ally Financial Inc.’s first-quarter profit took a hit as it made fewer loans and set aside money for defaults, and dealers AutoNation Inc. and Lithia Motors Inc. sold fewer cars, trucks and SUVs. What’s more, auto loan delinquencies are rising.
Together, they paint a worrisome economic picture. Auto companies typically struggle during downturns when people balk at making big-ticket purchases. This time, the situation could be even worse as businesses and consumers are also grappling with stubbornly high inflation and steeper borrowing costs. Retail sales slid in March by the most in four months, and a slowdown at auto dealers played a big part.
[…] “The recession scenario is on,” New Street Research analyst and long-time Tesla bull Pierre Ferragu wrote in a note Thursday. He said he expected the company’s margins to decline further this quarter, before recovering slowly in the second half of the year, and noted a “steep drop” in auto demand in China and signs of economic weakness globally.
Part of me is hesitant to glean too much from all of this. New cars are too damn expensive, Tesla’s demand is slowing in part because the lineup is getting old, and neither scream “full-blown” recession to me. So I’ll choose to believe this analyst instead, if only because I had enough fun in the last recession and I’m good to sit this one out:
“Everyone is looking for a sign the economy is falling off a cliff; we are heading toward the cliff but I don’t see it yet,” said Bill Zox, portfolio manager at Brandywine Global Investment Management. “It is pretty hard to draw any firm conclusions on the broader economy based on what we have seen so far in autos.”
Here’s hoping. But even if it’s not a sign of bigger trouble to come, the auto industry alone does seem poised to face more headwinds soon.
Stellantis Also Eyes E-Fuels To Keep ICE Alive
Not everybody is thrilled that the auto industry seems poised for a battery-electric-focused future. Synthetic e-fuels are seen by some as a way to save internal combustion engines; but critics say these fuels are expensive, hard to make and only carbon neutral when produced with complex carbon capture procedures.
Still, Germany fought hard to get them included in new European emissions rules and Italy joined the fight as well. Now we learn from Reuters that mega-conglomerate Stellantis is also experimenting with these fuels:
Stellantis, owner of brands including Fiat, Peugeot, Opel and Jeep, said in a statement it was testing everything from tailpipe emissions to engine power and oil dilution in Euro 6-standard vehicles made from 2014 and into 2029.
Solutions being tested could apply to up to 28 million Stellantis vehicles, with a potential reduction of CO2 emission in Europe of 400 million tons from 2025 to 2050, it added.
“The broad adoption of eFuels would offer customers with existing internal combustion engine vehicles an easy and affordable option to decarbonise their vehicles.”
Stellantis reaffirmed it was committed to all new car sales in Europe being battery-electric by 2030.
CEO Carlos Tavares said last month that the e-fuels vote did not change the carmaker’s electrification strategy but showed that not everybody agreed with a “dogmatic approach”.
“The industry will have to demonstrate that this is carbon-neutral,” he said.
And Tavares—whom it should be a note is a kind of begrudging EV skeptic—is right that the auto industry will have to prove e-fuels are worth a damn amid these rapid investments in batteries and charging.
But in theory, these fuels could be viable for reducing carbon emissions among the millions of ICE cars that will remain in service for decades to come, and on a smaller scale, to keeping classic cars on the road. But it’s a technology that remains in its absolute infancy. To anyone hoping e-fuels will save the engine on a long-term basis, I say don’t get your hopes up.
Your Turn
Is it too little, too late for Jaguar? Or does the brand have a real shot at survival by going upmarket and electric?
I think Jaguar’s dealers should be pleased if they figure out how to make an EV that spends half it’s life in a service bay. Right on brand, I say…
“Is it too little, too late for Jaguar? Or does the brand have a real shot at survival by going upmarket and electric?”
I don’t think it’s too late. But they need to come up with something that looks sexy. The stuff they’re selling now looks good, but it’s not that sexy. And I’d like it if they moved away from the “angry face” front ends that everyone is doing these days.
It needs to be sexy and elegant and POWERFUL. That’s what’s appealing about the brand, feminine curves but with athleticism. It’s hard to beat the Germans on the ring/track tho…. I feel like it makes sense to just become a boutique brand that makes very few cars, at a high price. Kind of like Alfa. Alfa isn’t trying to appeal to everyone.
This is my view too. Basically, Jaguar needs to become what Porsche was – a niche firm with a very strong, unique ethos. And sleek and sexy doesn’t have a ton of competition anymore.
I’m not sure the auto industry of right now is a good indicator of much of anything. You have a bunch of massive companies who are making crazy profits off reduced sales, which tells you they are price-gouging their customers to the n-th degree. They’ve straight up told us they were going to artificially limit supply to drive up demand, but they’ve priced so many people out of the market that it’s starting to backfire on them.
Of course, recessions also tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies. You have enough people loudly saying “recession” and it makes consumers nervous…which leads to a recession. It’s entirely possible that’s a factor here too. Very rarely does the state of the economy boil down to a single thing.
“We can’t get anyone to buy our 60k cars, let’s make 150k cars instead!” isn’t a strategy that’s typically going to work unless you’ve got some serious cash and killer designs to pull it off. I don’t have a lot of faith that Jaguar will be around for a whole lot longer.
Let me add to what McGovern is quoted as saying: … the E-Type, which “looked like it dropped from outer space … on a platform with too narrow wheel track”.
It might not be so crazy that Musk could be stepping down as CEO of Tesla in the not to distant future. Co-founder J.B. Straubel is in the process of returning to the company (somewhat unexpectedly). He was always seen as the clearest successor until he left to start Redwood Materials, so this could be a first step in that direction.
Musk could stay with the company as product architect, wizard of giggles, or whatever absurd title he wants to give himself, and (at least publicly) leave day to day operations to somebody else. This would also decouple the brand from his increasingly controversial persona.
As a pedant, I will note that J.B. Straubel was not a founder of Tesla. He was an early officer.
They need to boot him completely, he’s toxic and would continue being toxic. Tesla needs their Tim Cook.
“[W]e are heading toward the cliff but I don’t see it yet.”
Honestly think the 1% have been harping on this “a recession is coming!” bandwagon as an excuse to demoralize and frighten the working classes (e.g., the continuing tech layoffs). Workers gained a bit of an advantage in the past couple of years when we were in demand. Now we’ve got all these fancy ideas about wages catching up to the past 40 years of inflation, humane vacation and leave policies, and flexible working arrangements. Can’t have that!
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…said the wizard.
I finally clawed my way up to upper management in my field in the last year, and naturally I sit in a lot of meetings with big deal executives and whatnot. The amount of hand wringing over the folks in the trenches having the audacity to be asking for decent pay and benefits is amazing to me. I’ll watch these fat cats that have been in their high end positions for 10 years or more throw temper tantrums on Zoom over how “they can’t BELIEVE people have the audacity to want SIX FIGURES” and “WHEN I WAS THAT AGE I WASN’T MAKING HALF OF THAT” (I’m convinced inflation doesn’t exist in the minds of Boomers), etc.
To which I just smile and say “good” as I work to secure as much money as I can for the folks I supervise. Times are a changing, and for the better.
I’ve had a similar experience. Occasionally I present new products to upper management. It’s mind blowing. I don’t know why they get paid so much to do so little. I don’t understand.
I debated whether to put this in today’s roundup or not, but this is generally my thinking too. It’s also right before an election year and certain recession doom-sayers would do well with an administration up top that has them paying less in taxes.
Musk just can’t take a backseat to anyone. Anheiser Busch losses $6 Billion ? Musk loses $12 Billion.
The metrics that are used to determine what a recession is are arbitrary, and arcane. As a result, shit happens. The area we live in has endured a recession type economy for the last 150 years. But yeah, the US is famous for acknowledging such things long after the shit has been splattered by the fan.
Nope recession my neighbor losses his job. Depression i lose my job. But yeah every financial publication saying recession? Yeah recession. You know the whole follow the science? Forbes says recession yes random guy on the internet says no? Yes recession
I have to give you props for that username, Colonel. Thank you for your service out in the bush.
There is a lot of rich people out there, but there are only so many of them. At some point, that segment is going to dry up, and companies like Jaguar that >50% rely on them will as well.
It’s certainly a strategy to move upmarket, but I think it’s a bad idea to put all the eggs in that one basket.
Jaguar Land Rover also have the Land Rover basket to keep their rugged off-roady eggs in.
Eggs are easily broken and leak vital fluids everywhere, so that’s a metaphor that’s particularly appropriate.
But they won’t – they are not using the Land Rover name on that basket anymore. Now you have the Discovery, Range Rover and Defender baskets…
“But it’s a technology that remains in its absolute infancy. To anyone hoping e-fuels will save the engine on a long-term basis, I say don’t get your hopes up”
I would say that synthetic fuels are a technology in their mid-teens at least, based on my work with them back in the 2000’s. Please stop reporting on this like it’s a crazy idea someone just had last month.
E-fuels are the only hope for carbon neutral ICE. In Europe either we get
bulk sales of e-fuels before 2035 or ICE is dead. Twelve years to solve the problems of cost and mass production (which will do a lot about the cost). That seems an achievable target.
I guess we could burn hydrogen in ICE instead, but it also depends on huge amounts of green energy to create and has many practical disadvantages compare to e-fuels, not least not having thousands of millions of compatible vehicles already owned by the public.
The problem back in the 2000s is the same as today. The chemistry is sound and well known, but the feedstock issue is still essentially the same.
Palm oil / other existing food commodities -> deforestation and food insecurity
Algae – always 5-10 years away, always
direct air/hydrolysis/other new tech -> still in the lab, if a pilot plant exists we’re talking gallons, not barrels
Porsche opened their pilot factory last year.
https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2022/company/porsche-highly-innovative-fuels-hif-opening-efuels-pilot-plant-haru-oni-chile-synthetic-fuels-30732.html
130,000 litres of fuel a year sucked from the atmosphere and cracked from water, all using wind power.
It works and it’s scalable.
Thank god Jaguar is moving further upmarket! I was really starting to worry that the 1% didn’t have enough automotive options to conspicuously consume with. I’m so grateful that amidst all this hellish economic uncertainty for 90% of the world that SOMEONE is thinking of the ultra wealthy!
The endless circle of time:
*Luxury makers go downmarket*
Comment sections: “These cars are mailed in, only appealing to brand snobs and yuppies! Eventually this will come back to bite these brands in the ass as they tank their image with CLA250s, 220is, etc”
*Luxury makers go upmarket*
Comment sections: “Typical appealing to the 1%! Why can’t you make something everyone can afford??!!”
Oh don’t you worry my friend! I’m equal opportunity when it comes to my criticism of luxury buyers. I’m just as content to make fun of the people making 50-60k a year stretching themselves thin to lease a pearlescent white GLA250 or UX200 as I am the folks paying $300,000 in cash for lavish Bentleys that’ll be worth $90,000 in 4 years. Pretty much all of it is dumb.
…except, of course, me getting an M2, S5, IS500, or CT4V BW in the next couple of years. That’s sheer brilliance and a completely sound use of my resources. Obviously…
I had a GLA250 as a rental once. It sucked. Like a Asian or American car, but the fact it was trying to be a modern benz made it so much worse.
Making an ultra-luxe EV GT is a decent move for Jaguar. There are enough oddball billionaires out there to make this a viable model.
Soapbox: the reason cars and houses aren’t selling is they’re too darn expensive. Blame the pandemic hangover for that one. Companies got used to cranking out high trim vehicles since those sold better to the higher income folks not as affected by the pandemic. They’re riding that gravy train and the gravy is running out since that market got saturated. Tesla blinked first moving down market. The other automakers are still trying for those last few dribbles before they have to cut prices too. Wait it out another year and we’ll see incentives back to move metal.
Legacy auto is being disrupted by a new technology and therefore they are (largely) retreating to their legacy (ICE) higher margin products (yes for US market this means large expensive +$80k SUVs and Trucks) closely following Clayton Christensen’s Innovators delima/solution
Tesla and literally +300 Chinese EV only auto manufacturers are the disrupters.
The Chinese EV only auto manufacturers themselves are using cutthroat pricing to try to gain/establish some sort of marketsshare in an exteemely overcrowed Chinese Domestic auto market and in the process the only Auto Manufacturers that I know of* that are actually able to make a per vehicle profit are Tesla, BYD^ and Axios.
Hate on Teslas if you like, they are reported to be making >20% profit on each vehicle and that’s after their recent substantial price reductions. Traditional auto manufacturers are lucky if they see high single digit % profit per vehicle.
*please reply and add in any other automaker that is actually making a profit on their EVs.
^yes I know BYD is not 100% EV only (yet)
We never got into the Twitter-‘verse. So was wondering did you have to pay for a ‘verified’ check mark prior to Elon’s ownership? And why is the stupid blue check worth 8 bucks a month? Jesus what a lunatic…At least Trump didn’t end up with ownership of Twitter. Sorry Stans, but Elon and Tesla both are old news, and suck. Fight me.
No, you did not have to pay for the blue check before Musk. It was just a way of verifying the real identities of people who were considered public figures, including journalists. I used to have one.
As for why this is happening, it’s because Musk is desperate for revenue and wants to make Twitter more subscription-driven. I personally do not believe it’s worth $8 a month.
There was no blue check prior to Musk. Facebook loved having 200 Musks posting. The whole FB scam claiming more accounts than they had has been proven. FB even admitted to faking 20% now after research it is over 40%. Now if some rich celebrity or influencer cant afford $8 a month they clearly arent who they say and clearly dont have the milloon followers they claim.
Thanks, always appreciate it. The whole Elon-TESLA-Twitter-Space Guy story has become over the top crazy. Then throw in the political crap, and stock price manipulation, et all, and it becomes just exhausting. I think George Santos should play the role of Elon in the forthcoming Netflix mini series.
The blue check is new under Musk. It provides a confirmed site that jim parsons site is jim parsons. It requires some investigation and all the celebs and such can afford $8. Frankly they are mostly providing a contact to prove they are who they say they are. Sure Facebook allowed anyone to say they are anybody or several people. Elon is establishing a system to stop fake scammers. But the facebook fans and employees who established the worst scamming system in the world are against it. They are the scammers. Now noone wants to be me but many russian swindlers have used fake celebrity endorsements. So Elon is fighting this why celebs dont hawk to this well they dont think they should pay for anything. I am guessing when the lawsuits are over and they pay millions for benefiting from a Ponzi scheme they start throwing $8 at facebook to protect themselves
Seems like you think Twitter and Facebook are the same thing. That is very on-brand.
Speaking as a Jaguar owner, I hope they find a way to keep the brand alive. They will never sell large numbers but I think they could absolutely be competitive in the $150,000 EV space competing against the big Mercs and BMWs, and even to some extent against lower end Bentley. As I have said many times elegant luxury with sneaky performance is the hallmark of Jaguar and EVs are a perfect way to achieve that.
All these companies saying they are behind the 8-ball on the market direction, yet no one will make a EV roadster for the masses. Seems like that’s an easy cheap peoples car, instead of a small bolt like city car everyone would rather have a cute little roadster. Jag should also make a retro XJ EV. Supercar EV, way to late to that game for it to be profitable, but they are big into Formula-E that they think it will help bring people back.
Small roadsters are among the least popular types of cars and have been for years.
The weight of batteries seems like it would defeat most of the purpose of a small, ostensibly light vehicle.
Anyone who lives where it gets cold (most of the country) isn’t using a RWD convertible as a year-round vehicle.
Odd idea IMO; the Miata should probably be the last vehicle to be electrified, not one of the first.
Only Tesla would start making EVs with a roadster as their first car.
Starting with an electric sport car 15 years ago did make sense as it really was a limited production proof of concept made to grab attention and headlines and prove that an electric car could be exciting/fun. Given it was intentionally a niche product & “high tech” allowed them to be marketed at rich tech guys/gals who wanted to be seen in the latest new thing, which is very much in line with a waiting customer base. Plus 200 mile range and 0-60 in 4 sec.
Did the original Tesla roadster have plenty of problems? Oh fuck yeah and no I couldn’t justify owning one then or now, still I’m glad they were created bc its what helped to provide some funding & attract enough additional investment to create the Model S.
Keep in mind here I’m more pro EV than pro Tesla. I know the US prides itself on being an innovative “ideas” driven capitalistic society. It seems batshit crazy to think Tesla is the 1st US auto manufacturer to go public (in 2012) since Ford did in 1956!
How many US automakers are there? GM, Ford, Tesla, Rivian, Lucid & maybe Aptera (which is really stretching it since so far they are struggling to get their 1st product (a 3 wheeler as cool as it might look) to market. That’s it. Chrysler/Ram/Dodge/Jeep haven’t been American owned for quite a while.
Meanwhile right now there are literally 600 auto manufacturers in China…
Guilty, and I am certainly NOT anyone, as I am noone.
I generally agree. Though even a somewhat porky roadster with all its weight down as low as possible with RWD and electric-level amounts of torque would be a ton of fun.
Agree with your first paragraph, as I do with most of your opinions, and maybe that’s all that matters. But IMO the Miata is, in fact, a great candidate for electrification. It’s a tiny car used primarily for short pleasure trips during ideal weather when battery performance is optimal, days are long and your home solar panels are at maximum output. It could have a pretty small battery in it, which would keep it affordable and lightweight. You put it on a trickle charger for the winter and don’t have to worry about gas rot or fluid changes on a low mileage vehicle.
Makes a lot more sense to me than putting huge, crazy expensive batteries into a 4×4 pickup truck that gets used in extreme weather, needs to do long distance trips, and is used for towing.
The only fly in the ointment is that I’d want my Miata to be a manual.
I guess it depends what the goal really is:
The OP mentioned an “EV roadster for the masses” which is where I mostly got hung up, because the masses don’t buy roadsters.
So from that standpoint, attempts to electrify the fleet or quickly reduce emissions should focus on pretty much anything else first. Companies who want to break into EVs should probably focus on literally anything else first. Replacing every Miata in the world with an electric is going to save basically nothing emissions or fuel-wise.
From the standpoint of an individual consumer, a small EV convertible might make some sense and you’ve made a good case. To me personally, everything about an EV is diametrically opposite to the purpose of a sports car, so I wouldn’t be interested. My preferred EV “fun” car would take the form of something like an old domestic convertible or a Wrangler, i.e. spacious top down fun at low speeds.
An electric E-type convertible would be sublime. Anything less would be… something less.
I feel like Jaguar and Cadillac are the two luxury brands constantly promising a major reinvention every couple of years that ultimately produces no payoff in sales volumes or market share.
We’ll see, I guess, Jag at least has more cachet to build off of.
There’s gotta be enough room under that absurdly long E-Type bonnet to fit 400 miles worth of battery. Come on, do it, Jaguar, you cowards.
I’ll say this. Gerry is not much one for whimsy or heritage, so anyone hoping for something like the Bertone B99 Concept is going to be sorely disappointed.
100% agree, it’s a shame though. That bertone design was handsome in all the right ways, and did a beautiful job of looking like a Jag.
I wonder if they canned it because by the time it made it to production it would look a bit too much like the XJ6/XJR?
Afaik it was a completely on spec proposal by Bertone. Jaguar didn’t have anything to do with it.
They could be the first to make an actually beautiful, ultra luxury EV car since Rolls and Bentley are dragging their feet, and everyone else went for the drastic, “we’re the future of technology” vibe. I… don’t think that’s what we’re going to see, however
High end competition to Rolls & Bentley make perfect sense as a place to start electric vehicles. The products in this segment are all about zero NVH & nothing is smoother than an electric motor. Besides no need for huge range b/c anything over 2-300 miles the customers will take the jet
All-electric Jaguars? I’m sure they’ll be “shocking”….
But future Jaguars will, at least in my view, have to be inspired by the cars that got the company here, which were sleek and distinctive sports cars and luxurious but individualistic performance sedans (e.g. E-Type and Mark II). Trying to go head-to-head with “upmarket” machines isn’t going to slice it.
I know that means getting by with lower volumes. But everybody and their dogs are trying to “move upmarket,” and there is a finite limit to how many can fit that space. Nor is Jaguar GM or Toyota; they’d don’t need — and shouldn’t try — to fill every niche. That’s a sure path to oblivion.
Could it be that the decline in auto sales has to do with customer disinterest in what’s being offered? Once the early adopters get their electric SUVs and crossovers, there might be some die-hards out there who would ante up for a sedan — or maybe even a genuine compact car? — that doesn’t require plugging in or accepting touchscreens and all the computerized gewgaws? I know that’s a mossback attitude, but yes, I’m one who would certainly look at a Fiesta-size ICE car and would never consider one of those Lexus clones of a Citroen H-van.
I like this idea.
I was out riding my motorcycle yesterday, and got behind an F-type (one of the cool autopian things about bikes is that at stoplights, you’re literally feet away from the car in front of you, so you get to examine them up close) and have to say, after a few intersections, I was marveling at how beautiful of a design it is, esp. that rear hatch profile. Such a nice modern interpretation of the E-type’s.
I want to think this is a better strategy for Jaguar than the previous “Be a British BMW” plan, but there’s a bigger picture issue that they need to address regardless of the strategy: Tata has not stuck with ANYTHING (or invested enough money) for Jaguar long enough to see it pay off. You can’t build a successful brand in 2-3 years after 20+ of disappointing customers. Hopefully they’ll give this shift some runway and capital to see if it actually works. If not, its time to pack it in.
And you can’t invest a bunch to launch a product and then totally forget about it after the launch like they did with the I-Pace.
Remember Jaguar promised OTA for the I-Pace which was to start w/in months after its release? Yeah their customers are still waiting for that promise to be fulfilled
Jaguar just needs to make the car not look fucking weird. It needs to look elegant and I think that will help drive the sales, because right now every full sized luxury EV sedan looks fucking weird and not every one with money to afford such a thing wants the “I’M FROM THE FUTURE, GAZE UPON MY FUTURNESS AND WEEP” design language.
I think you miss all of the full sized luxury EV’s on the road. For regular looking cars you have the BMW i7 series, the BMW i4 series, the Mercedes Benz EQS, the PoleStar, the Mercedes Benz EQE. Those all just look like cars. Heck the Tesla Model S is boring looking now being ubiquitous. The only odd looking one is the Lucid Air, and that is just because it does not look like a BMW or Mercedes Benz. Maybe the Porsche Taycan could be considered weird looking because it does not look “911 enough” or the Audi eTron for being different from the other Audi’s. I’ll admit I included a couple of mid sized luxury cars in the list, but BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Porsche are all making regular looking electric luxury cars.
The EQS and E are “regular” looking to you?
You’re sittin’ here with a straight face tellin’ me that the i7, i4 and EQS aren’t fuckin weird looking?
Well after the i3, everything else is “normalish”. *I love our i3.
tbf the i4 is regular looking when in the context of any modern BMW ICE car
This doesn’t compute. Is it 700 km (435 miles) or 515 km (320 miles)?
Must be an outsourced coding calculation error.
I would trust ChatGPT to get that one right
Since no correction seems forthcoming, I actually went and checked other websites, which confirm that the 700 km figure is correct. All of them were able to convert to the correct 430-435 miles however.
DT is the only one who can be trusted with math.
Yes, but all his measurements are on the base-Kafer system.