RE: Jaguar line up to become F-Pace only
Monday 15th July 2024
Jaguar line up to become F-Pace only
The EV Jag revolution is close, but the new era will begin without a current electric model
That Jaguar’s traditional saloons - the XE and XF - along with the rambunctious F-Type would end production well ahead of its new electric era made complete sense. They very much represented the past, and sold in small numbers. The last of those were made in June. Now, however, it’s been confirmed that both the E-Pace small SUV and I-Pace EV will go before we see the new cars, leaving just the F-Pace on sale.
While the decision doesn’t yet have a fixed date, with both I-Pace and E-Pace made by Magna Steyr in Austria, Automotive News Europe has reported on comments made by CEO Adrian Mardell in a call with investors. “We are eliminating five products, all lower value. None of those are vehicles on which we made any money, so we are replacing them with new vehicles on newly designed architectures”, he said. Yikes. That will happen at some point this year. Things get even more stark, for the UK at least, as Autocar reports that the F-Pace sells as many units as the rest of the range combined. Given that, the clear out is less of a surprise.
Let’s be honest, too - neither E-Pace nor I-Pace are any longer class-leading, if they ever were. If they’re not profitable either, it makes sense to get rid, however drastic the decision looks, and prepare for what comes next on the new JEA electric architecture. On the positive side for the consumer, it might be the time to do a deal on the cars that are out there for sale at Jaguar dealers, with the focus shifting to the F-Pace in the short term and then the full-on luxury EVs. This E-Pace sneaks in at under £40k with the 310hp plug-in three-cylinder and less than 1,000 miles, while there are 2024 I-Pace HSEs available at £45,000. For the EV in particular, that seems like a lot of car for, relatively speaking, not very much money. Still, it’s really starting to feel like those new models can’t come soon enough.
Discussion
All sounds worryingly ominous.
J has long since been the unloved letter in JLR and the rumours a few years ago that the brand might die out are starting to look worryingly accurate.
It's a real shame as they've made some lovely cars in the last ten years. I wouldn't change my XJ for any of the natural german rivals yet they killed that one off a few years ago. The XF sportbrake with a V8 would still be a great choice and both the F type and XE had their moments too.
Even the I-pace, when released, seemed to have gone in the right direction as far as EV's go but again they didn't bother to keep it up to date and let everyone else overtake it.
I'm surprised individual units of the models to be axed aren't contributing at least something to the bottom line, given development costs are basically absorbed within the models already sold?
Tata have neglected the brand too much and as near as damnit removing it from the market completely will surely kill what's left?
J has long since been the unloved letter in JLR and the rumours a few years ago that the brand might die out are starting to look worryingly accurate.
It's a real shame as they've made some lovely cars in the last ten years. I wouldn't change my XJ for any of the natural german rivals yet they killed that one off a few years ago. The XF sportbrake with a V8 would still be a great choice and both the F type and XE had their moments too.
Even the I-pace, when released, seemed to have gone in the right direction as far as EV's go but again they didn't bother to keep it up to date and let everyone else overtake it.
I'm surprised individual units of the models to be axed aren't contributing at least something to the bottom line, given development costs are basically absorbed within the models already sold?
Tata have neglected the brand too much and as near as damnit removing it from the market completely will surely kill what's left?
There was a Jaguar area off the main Land Rover stand at Goodwood FOS. It was genuinely sad; there was literally nothing in it, except a big cube with a film running on it, showing Jaguar's past glories.
This is a manufacturer that has, in its time, produced 7 Le Mans wins, along with numerous other victories in other categories. It built the XJ, arguably the best saloon car of its type, and the E Type, which took the world by storm.
I would rather someone like Geely bought it and at least tried to make it great again, rather than watching the slow death of my favourite car brand under the stewardship of various incompetents.
Its almost as if the management sit around thinking of ways to take a good brand and f
k it up.... like some weird corporate Brewsters Millions.
"We have a loyal customer base who really like our traditional big saloon" "Ha! Lets make a weird looking one with the back end of a Citroen XM"
"Hmm, people really like a 2+2 coupe and the 911 sells well" "Lets ditch the XK and replace it with a heavy two seater"
"The F Type is doing better than we thought" "OK, facelift it, and remove the front end everyone likes and make it look blander"
"What shall we do next?" "Ah, I know, lets remove the interesting engines from our saloon cars and use four cylinders exclusively. Ideally a diesel which breaks"
This is a manufacturer that has, in its time, produced 7 Le Mans wins, along with numerous other victories in other categories. It built the XJ, arguably the best saloon car of its type, and the E Type, which took the world by storm.
I would rather someone like Geely bought it and at least tried to make it great again, rather than watching the slow death of my favourite car brand under the stewardship of various incompetents.
Its almost as if the management sit around thinking of ways to take a good brand and f
k it up.... like some weird corporate Brewsters Millions. "We have a loyal customer base who really like our traditional big saloon" "Ha! Lets make a weird looking one with the back end of a Citroen XM"
"Hmm, people really like a 2+2 coupe and the 911 sells well" "Lets ditch the XK and replace it with a heavy two seater"
"The F Type is doing better than we thought" "OK, facelift it, and remove the front end everyone likes and make it look blander"
"What shall we do next?" "Ah, I know, lets remove the interesting engines from our saloon cars and use four cylinders exclusively. Ideally a diesel which breaks"
Edited by Robertb on Monday 15th July 17:27
It has gone ominously quiet - you'd think they'd have some news of the new models in the pipeline. There was a flurry of press around the new EV JEA platform about a year ago with talk of three new models, and some big numbers cited relating to Tata's investment in Jaguar's electric rebirth, but then pretty much nothing 
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/jlr-in...
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/jlr-in...
Tata didn’t want Jaguar when they bought in, they wanted Land Rover and ended up with Jaguar because Ford couldn’t or didn’t want to unpack it. The story varies slightly depending on who you talk to. The series 1 XF and the XJ were ready to launch or almost done when the deal was done so Tata has given us the F-type, XE, second XF and the three pace models. Many Jaguar “fans” might not have agreed with Ralph Speths push for volume but around 2015 they were selling more cars than they ever had.
The I Pace when it was launched was ahead of the pack but faced with not being able to develop that because of production capacity, the ingenium engines issue and the scrapping of the 2020 XJ has given an impression that everything is going wrong.
Maybe the switch to a three model luxury range will be just what Jaguar needs. The important markets are not the UK anymore and the US is not as important as it was.
The issue for me is the mess that governments are making with the electric mandate. Yes we have discussed electric to death on here but it’s created havoc with car manufacturers long term planning having deadlines and ones that now seem fluid or may not happen at all.
I don’t think Jaguar is dead, far from it. I think for 2025 we will see a much more luxurious and personalised Jaguar at the next level up market wise. Whether it’s a success will be done to China, the Middle East, India and South America amongst other growing markets. They have no idea who Willy Lyons was, don’t care about a race in France in the 50s, sir John who? None of it is relevant to them which is why you can create a brand from scratch these days.
I think we will see all three models, they will separate Jaguar off and then in 2028-9 we will see the new company sold then Tata get what they wanted, Land Rover
The I Pace when it was launched was ahead of the pack but faced with not being able to develop that because of production capacity, the ingenium engines issue and the scrapping of the 2020 XJ has given an impression that everything is going wrong.
Maybe the switch to a three model luxury range will be just what Jaguar needs. The important markets are not the UK anymore and the US is not as important as it was.
The issue for me is the mess that governments are making with the electric mandate. Yes we have discussed electric to death on here but it’s created havoc with car manufacturers long term planning having deadlines and ones that now seem fluid or may not happen at all.
I don’t think Jaguar is dead, far from it. I think for 2025 we will see a much more luxurious and personalised Jaguar at the next level up market wise. Whether it’s a success will be done to China, the Middle East, India and South America amongst other growing markets. They have no idea who Willy Lyons was, don’t care about a race in France in the 50s, sir John who? None of it is relevant to them which is why you can create a brand from scratch these days.
I think we will see all three models, they will separate Jaguar off and then in 2028-9 we will see the new company sold then Tata get what they wanted, Land Rover
I've just bought a 2014 Jaguar XF, with a thumping great 5.0 supercharged V8 so I have affinity with the Jaguar brand. 'Grace', 'space' and 'pace' is a great set of brand values, but apparently those don't appeal to the masses (Jaguar certainly hasn't used them for years).
The F-Pace is a good car (if you avoid the Ingenium diesels and choose the SVR), but Jaguar doesn't seem to have any visible strategy now that most of their model range has been retired.
Their electric strategy is also very strange - the I-Pace was a good car (5 years ago), but with no successor. The electric XJ was killed off close to production, and there's been no sign at all of the proposed new electric model range - no mules or prototypes of Jaguar's EV 'revolution' have been seen on the road. It all seems like vapourware to me.
Talk of the brand moving noticeably upmarket with their new EV offerings also seems completely out of touch with reality. They simply don't have the brand to appeal at £100k+, particularly with much of the world going cold on expensive EV offerings.
I fear Jaguar isn't long for this world - which is a real shame given the brand's heritage.
The F-Pace is a good car (if you avoid the Ingenium diesels and choose the SVR), but Jaguar doesn't seem to have any visible strategy now that most of their model range has been retired.
Their electric strategy is also very strange - the I-Pace was a good car (5 years ago), but with no successor. The electric XJ was killed off close to production, and there's been no sign at all of the proposed new electric model range - no mules or prototypes of Jaguar's EV 'revolution' have been seen on the road. It all seems like vapourware to me.
Talk of the brand moving noticeably upmarket with their new EV offerings also seems completely out of touch with reality. They simply don't have the brand to appeal at £100k+, particularly with much of the world going cold on expensive EV offerings.
I fear Jaguar isn't long for this world - which is a real shame given the brand's heritage.
There was more or less a whole generation of new Jags designed under Ian Callum which were then cancelled; new electric XJ, J-Pace luxury SUV and two or three others.
Hence why Jaguar have literally nothing remotely fresh on sale, it's all old models. In this case the trick is simply to keep selling them as long as doing so makes money, clearly the F-Pace is the only one for which that's still the case.
I guess the dealers will stick around as they still have Range Rovers to sell profitably, so only having one Jag model left on sale isn't the franchise network killer it would otherwise be?
I hope the new generation of all-electric Jags (a) actually launch, (b) are good and (c) sell well.
How did the E-Pace not make any money? Isn't in an Evoque? So basically 90% of the car is already developed, and you still don't make money? Doesn't make sense to me.
I see plenty of the I-Pace, so assumed that was alright for them. Hard to expect a brand new, electric car (and the first electric JLR product) to make loads.
A shame the F-Type wasn't properly replaced, as they must have sold plenty of them and I'd argue they are still a firm favourite, manging to transcend the 65-year old at a golf course vibe Jag's normally have.
I see plenty of the I-Pace, so assumed that was alright for them. Hard to expect a brand new, electric car (and the first electric JLR product) to make loads.
A shame the F-Type wasn't properly replaced, as they must have sold plenty of them and I'd argue they are still a firm favourite, manging to transcend the 65-year old at a golf course vibe Jag's normally have.
ChrisCh86 said:
I've just bought a 2014 Jaguar XF, with a thumping great 5.0 supercharged V8 so I have affinity with the Jaguar brand. 'Grace', 'space' and 'pace' is a great set of brand values, but apparently those don't appeal to the masses (Jaguar certainly hasn't used them for years).
You see many people talk about grace, space and pace as if its a slogan they have used in recent times. In reality they binned that slogan in 1968 before they launched the XJ.ChrisCh86 said:
Their electric strategy is also very strange - the I-Pace was a good car (5 years ago), but with no successor. The electric XJ was killed off close to production, and there's been no sign at all of the proposed new electric model range - no mules or prototypes of Jaguar's EV 'revolution' have been seen on the road. It all seems like vapourware to me.
The I-Pace was their opportunity to modernise their production facilities and build it in house bit failure to do that meant it wasn't developed and we will probably never find out the real reason for the XJ being killed off. The talk was of a "significant engineering flaw" but who knows. The prototypes were all destroyed except one that has an embargo that it wont see the light of day until most of us are long pushing up daisies. There were no mules of prototypes seen for the electric XJ so the fact they have not been seen for the new 4 door GT is no surprise. I wonder if the "new 4 door GT" will basically be very similar to the electric XJ just on a new platform.
ChrisCh86 said:
Talk of the brand moving noticeably upmarket with their new EV offerings also seems completely out of touch with reality. They simply don't have the brand to appeal at £100k+, particularly with much of the world going cold on expensive EV offerings.
World going cold on EV certainly but they had to make this decision in faith that governments would see it through. Its been a terrible time for planning in car companies, especially the small ones that have not got the resources to keep stuff in reserve. The brand appeal is a tough one because we cant really say that. The UK and US are not the key markets now. China, the middle east and India will decide if its a success not us. thelostboy said:
How did the E-Pace not make any money? Isn't in an Evoque? So basically 90% of the car is already developed, and you still don't make money? Doesn't make sense to me.
I see plenty of the I-Pace, so assumed that was alright for them. Hard to expect a brand new, electric car (and the first electric JLR product) to make loads.
A shame the F-Type wasn't properly replaced, as they must have sold plenty of them and I'd argue they are still a firm favourite, manging to transcend the 65-year old at a golf course vibe Jag's normally have.
The E-Pace and I-Pace are not built by Jaguar they are built by Magnyr Steyr in Austria and as such Jaguar gets a "royalty" for each one produced rather than a proper profit. That payment is based on projected volumes and those projected volumes were never realised so the royalty is smaller than it should have been and on a much smaller pool of cars. Disaster caused by the inability of the company to upgrade its production facilities to enable them to be built in the same facilities as other cars that were not filling 100% of the production lines at the time. I see plenty of the I-Pace, so assumed that was alright for them. Hard to expect a brand new, electric car (and the first electric JLR product) to make loads.
A shame the F-Type wasn't properly replaced, as they must have sold plenty of them and I'd argue they are still a firm favourite, manging to transcend the 65-year old at a golf course vibe Jag's normally have.
They havent sold as many F-Type as you may think either with sales being quite small certainly after 2016 and even less after the facelift. Another car that didnt really sell to its projection and therefore impacting on profits
thelostboy said:
How did the E-Pace not make any money? Isn't in an Evoque? So basically 90% of the car is already developed, and you still don't make money? Doesn't make sense to me.
I see plenty of the I-Pace, so assumed that was alright for them. Hard to expect a brand new, electric car (and the first electric JLR product) to make loads.
A shame the F-Type wasn't properly replaced, as they must have sold plenty of them and I'd argue they are still a firm favourite, manging to transcend the 65-year old at a golf course vibe Jag's normally have.
Both the I-Pace and the subsequent E-Pace were produced/assembled by Magna in Austria, so I'd hazard a guess that there was little if any profit margin in either for Jaguar in reality … its a great approach for small-volume or halo models, but not for "mainstream" volume models as they needed both of these to be for the brand.I see plenty of the I-Pace, so assumed that was alright for them. Hard to expect a brand new, electric car (and the first electric JLR product) to make loads.
A shame the F-Type wasn't properly replaced, as they must have sold plenty of them and I'd argue they are still a firm favourite, manging to transcend the 65-year old at a golf course vibe Jag's normally have.
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