How threatened is JLR?...sounds worrying
Discussion
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11...
I recall some of the mighty days of Jaguar in particular....but it does not look good.
I recall some of the mighty days of Jaguar in particular....but it does not look good.
Look at any photograph of a British city from (say 1958) and you will see a huge preponderance of domestically produce cars. By the way, look at the US from the same period and the same will apply. Of course there were some wonderful cars at the pinnacle, but where the average buyer sat the cars were good but a little dull.
Roll forward and the first low quality Japanese stuff appeared, followed by low quality Korean stuff. It was cheap and economical though and it gradually got MUCH better at the same time as domestic production was inefficient and of declining quality.
Forget all the Mercedes/Porsche/ Ferrari stuff...rare and hens' teeth with tiny volumes so did not matter. VW,Toyota,Renault and the rest were on the move while domestic was increasingly strangled by unions and regulation. In the US a backward-looking industry produced big old car and some muscle cars and sneered at the emergency of the little foreign junk.
Very little was produced for enthusiasts...the Jag was closest, but then people like BMW were producing quality product like the 2002 which I remember fondly in my young days. Tastes had changed and the underinvestment domestically was showing. IN the end, the quality was much lower than the Germans and the Japanese, and , astonishingly, the Korean cars that had started with thing like the abominable Hyundai Pony.
Now we will start to proclaim the awful Chinese junk ( no not the boat) when it arrives. It will be bad, then good, then excellent. The secret it to make the intro product so cheap that people will accept the problems and then build up the market to good product.
At the high end like JLR, the product must be bulletproof. No excuses.
For instance Porsche makes a very high quality product. (Yes, I have some, but not a purist, and am well aware of exploding GT3s). the statistics for the volume stuff like Macans and the like are very good. Toyota/Lexus/Kia make very good product and have the resources to develop new stuff. VW is putting $50 Billion into electric and sharing the cost across all of its Marques. The Taycan is really a badge-engineered ( but good ) platform for all of the others. This the development cost is manageable.
As I posted to start the thread....it is worrying for JLR.
I take no satisfaction either. These brands have important and impressive history and it would be a crying shame to lost them.
Roll forward and the first low quality Japanese stuff appeared, followed by low quality Korean stuff. It was cheap and economical though and it gradually got MUCH better at the same time as domestic production was inefficient and of declining quality.
Forget all the Mercedes/Porsche/ Ferrari stuff...rare and hens' teeth with tiny volumes so did not matter. VW,Toyota,Renault and the rest were on the move while domestic was increasingly strangled by unions and regulation. In the US a backward-looking industry produced big old car and some muscle cars and sneered at the emergency of the little foreign junk.
Very little was produced for enthusiasts...the Jag was closest, but then people like BMW were producing quality product like the 2002 which I remember fondly in my young days. Tastes had changed and the underinvestment domestically was showing. IN the end, the quality was much lower than the Germans and the Japanese, and , astonishingly, the Korean cars that had started with thing like the abominable Hyundai Pony.
Now we will start to proclaim the awful Chinese junk ( no not the boat) when it arrives. It will be bad, then good, then excellent. The secret it to make the intro product so cheap that people will accept the problems and then build up the market to good product.
At the high end like JLR, the product must be bulletproof. No excuses.
For instance Porsche makes a very high quality product. (Yes, I have some, but not a purist, and am well aware of exploding GT3s). the statistics for the volume stuff like Macans and the like are very good. Toyota/Lexus/Kia make very good product and have the resources to develop new stuff. VW is putting $50 Billion into electric and sharing the cost across all of its Marques. The Taycan is really a badge-engineered ( but good ) platform for all of the others. This the development cost is manageable.
As I posted to start the thread....it is worrying for JLR.
I take no satisfaction either. These brands have important and impressive history and it would be a crying shame to lost them.
lornemalvo said:
I have to question the statement that Porsche make a high quality product. The fit and finish are beautiful, but the more I read about ruinous problems with the 996, 997, the Macan etc etc the more I am sure that I will never touch one, as tempting as they are. Half shaft failures, fuel injector problems, IMS bearing failures, engines self destructing following scoring of cylinders and pistons. Research suggests that these are not isolated failures, but are quite common. My interpretation of a high quality car is one that should reach 199, 000 maybe 150,000 miles without major issues.
Of course they have failures and some have been quite serious; however, they do quite well in consumer surveys in terms of reliability. I have a number of them and reliability is good. I have 264,000km on a Cayenne S for instance, and only one major failure. Couple of 997RS and a 991RS with the usual recalls but quite bulletproof. I think most Porsche enthusiasts are well aware of the problems you mentioned, yet they are not everyday occurrences.
Porsche is far from perfect, and like any car that started life in the higher end of the market, parts and maintenance do not decline in price even as the car depreciates.
I suspect that most Porsches at 200,000 miles would be pretty shot though
Results far from stellar although report sees some hope:
https://www.autonews.com/sales/jaguar-land-rover-g...
https://www.autonews.com/sales/jaguar-land-rover-g...
Otispunkmeyer said:
Not wanting to start another thread, but anyone took a look at Ford lately?
Share price seems to be cratering and this piece : https://www.ccn.com/forget-the-dow-coronavirus-cou...
albeit a little scaremongering perhaps, lays out a case for Ford shares hitting zero. Thoughts?
They had a 26% drop in sales to China ( before the virus showed up)....they will be challenged.Share price seems to be cratering and this piece : https://www.ccn.com/forget-the-dow-coronavirus-cou...
albeit a little scaremongering perhaps, lays out a case for Ford shares hitting zero. Thoughts?
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