Ditching Internal Combustion Is Jaguar's Best Hope For Long-Term Survival
Speculation has emerged that Jaguar could drop every last one of its internal combustion engines from its range in less than 10 years, as part of a wholesale move to electric propulsion. Slice it any way you like; that timescale is a big deal. Hurrying may also be Jaguar’s best chance to save itself from a present that hasn’t quite turned out the way it wanted.
The British brand makes lovely cars. They’re technologically advanced, generally enjoyable to drive and they look great. In theory it’s a winning formula, but sales are still comparatively low when stacked against any of its big three German adversaries. The potential reasons for that are several.
Firstly, Jaguar had heavily targeted the business driver; the rep who spends 40,000 miles a year pounding up and down motorways. It’s a sensible business decision to drive sales volume. This company car user-chooser has traditionally preferred saloons. Diesel ones. As such Jaguar has spent a fortune investing in its bread-and-butter saloon ranges, the XE and XF, only to find its buyers’ collective taste buds wandering deep into the fields of jacked-up hatchbacks and SUVs.
Likewise the company threw many, many English pounds at its Ingenium four-cylinder diesel range. The development programme was supposed to be the heart of Jaguar’s cutting-edge, low-emission assault on the Germans for generations to come… but then Dieselgate happened. The Volkswagen Group-centred disaster for diesel has seen derve sales plummet across Europe, Jaguar’s main market for diesel cars.
Sure, the company has covered some bases with a new Ingenium four-cylinder petrol engine and the F-Pace SUV, which is now becoming a common sight in the UK, but key pillars of Jaguar’s business model have been swept out from under it. To add insult to injury, much of the media who have driven the Ingenium 2.0-litre petrol engine say it isn’t all that great versus the other options out there. A missed opportunity, perhaps.
The Jaguar I-Pace, on the other hand, seems to have made half the automotive world rather excited. It’s a blend of SUV-inspired ride height and coupe styling that both makes it a desirable thing to look at and hides its genuinely massive size incredibly well. Here’s a tweet featuring an I-Pace dwarfing a Tesla Model S – itself a car not exactly known for its smallness.
Just been shooting some proper telly with @GinnyBuckley for @ITVTonight to be broadcast on 6th Sept. #electriccars pic.twitter.com/sX50jfaVNe
— Robert Llewellyn (@bobbyllew) August 15, 2018
Speaking of identity, Jaguar has been ebbing into and out of the same crisis for decades. From its financially ruinous attempts to build a V12 GT car that turned into the flimsy XJS, to the disastrous attempt to reinvent itself with the XJ220 just as the market turned against the idea, to the retro-inspired but point-missing S-Type and Mondeo-based X-Type, to the wholesale reinvention of the brand under the penmanship of Sir Ian Callum, and now this… Jaguar simply hasn’t been able to build enduring success yet.
If it turns out to be true, this latest move signals another galactic-scale cutting of the company’s losses and a tacit admission that its grand 21st Century plans, which have produced many likeable and memorable cars with (Ford-designed) six and eight-cylinder engines, have ultimately failed to grow the business enough. Jaguar’s four-cylinder options just haven’t been good enough to tempt a public that is also moving away from saloons just after the English car maker has poured a tonne of money into them. It’s a perfect storm from within which Jaguar needs to take extreme action if it wants to escape and prosper.
That’s why drawing a line under any future new engine programmes is the right thing to do. Sure, we adore many of Jaguar’s Ford-based V6s and V8s and we’ll miss them like hell, but with JLR’s engine contract with the Blue Oval ending in 2020, they’re going anyway, and going very soon. Where that leaves the F-Type for the remainder of its life, we’re not sure.
The future of motoring is a lot quieter. The sooner Jaguar moves to take ownership of that, maybe even managing to get ahead of its three German nemeses if buying trends suddenly swing towards electric cars before 2030, the more chance that it will emerge as a leader in the new age.
Comments
I just hope they make decent EVs.
This would be a terrible decision for Jaguar. The fact is, there’s not a lot of people right now who want an EV, and its impossible to predict if/ when people will want EV’s.
Given that most of Jaguars customers are business drivers who drive on the motorways for hours, EV range will be an issue, and these people will just go and buy something German instead. I don’t think its enough to kill the brand (I certainly hope not), but Jaguar will struggle with only having EV’s in its range.
Its sad to see CT encouraging a car manufacturer to make cars for Greenpeace instead of enthusiasts. This sort of low-quality articles are why I no longer visit the Top Gear website.
I’m fine with this
This article really makes me feel sad for Jaguar, but at least they have what sounds like a solid plan of action
If the rest of their lineup will be as amazing as the I-pace, I see nothing wrong with it
I-type… Oh I’m getting chills…
Jaguar is nearly to close their doors at ic engines , porsche has completely removed diesels from their lineup … More than an ecological battle looks like a witch hunt for me , i live in europe , and more precisely in southern italy … Here we have a loooooot of diesel e-pace, f-pace , XE and XJ and that’s not a joke when i say a lot . Same goes for diesel porsches , if i drive for no more than 10 km i can count to you no less than 10 or 11 macan , cayenne and panamera . But i think that this trend is valid for almost every part of center / southern europe not just my area. And the answer is so simple : they’re good engines . No other reasons , they’re powerful , torquey and they have low consumption . That’s all. There’s a diesel for every society class in Europe , small 3 and 4 cylinders for low/middle class , and 6 or even some 8 cylinders from who want to have a luxury car but to burn diesel , too . But now the rules are changing so fast that automakers needs to change their plans equally fast by taking radical decisions on the current model’s lineups . Numbers are numbers , and Porsche without diesel can sell just a few 911s and some cayman/ boxster in my country but it’s a minimal part when confronting the actual sales to what Porsche will sell in the near future without their oil burners . We don’t have infrastructures for EV and yep , there are some plans to adequate the cities but they require time , a lot of time … Time in which people can’t buy a diesel because are out of production and can’t buy EV or hybrids because out of your garage charging your car is obviously not as easy as doing a simple refuelling … That ‘s just my (long , sorry ) personal thought on what my eyes are seeing and in my hearth i really hope to be wrong , that’s all .
As I said on the last Jaguar EV post, These negative comments illustrate partly why this site is driving into the ground. They are so ignorant, full of uneducated comments and backwards thinking/opinions. The first thing I thought when I saw this was ‘that’s absolutely great news!’ Now this isn’t just because I’m a tree-hugging Environmental Scientist, although that is true. This is great news a. From an economics standpoint, because being an early adopter of ‘future’ tech will almost always yield financial success and elevate your prestige, and b. Because it’s opening a gateway for new and very exciting tech, and not just snubbing it and living in denial of the inevitability that it will one day become the norm! When did the automotive community stop getting excited by new speed and technology, and start looking back at dated, flawed ideas? It makes no sense to me personally
I’m sad to read this,but if this is going to help Jaguar secure its long-term survival,let it be.But one thing disturbs me and that is why everyone buys a SUV?
Good that at least Jaguars will survive the economic change. We don’t want any car manufacturer to die.
You have to accept that the 90s era is already gone. Almost 90% of the people I talk to, they just want to “appear” from point A to point B. Driving has become more or less a chore to the population majority. The driving enthusiast has been shrinking significantly.