Jaguar to become a luxury car brand again
Jaguar has had an unusual journey. To me, it's a brand that made luxury delights, but then Ford came along and bought the brand and made a Ford Mondeo luxury soup out of it. After Ford, Tata tried to revive the brand and place it as a competitor to BMW and the other Germans, and it succeeded.
Now, new manager Thierry Bolloré has taken matters into his own hands, and in an interview with Auto Express last week, he tells us more about the future. Jaguar will end its war with the Germans and instead compete with Bentley in a higher class. The price tag is expected to start at around £100,000 and all models will be electric. The focus will be on three basic models, including a two-door sports car and a crossover. The whole thing is described as modern luxury.
Thierry seems to agree that Jaguar as a brand is pretty broken.
"When Jaguar was incredibly successful, at the time when the E-Type got onto the market, it was a copy of nothing. That is what we are preparing now. I think Land Rover is a fantastic story and the potential of Range Rover, Defender, Discovery is extraordinary. But the situation of Jaguar was really a concern from outside, and more than a concern from inside, because the brand has been damaged to a certain extent."
Even though there seems to be a crossover in the future, Thierry doesn't want Jaguar to have many SUVs in its lineup. He claims that today's Jaguar and Land Rover models overlap, and that shouldn't be the case. Land Rover should simply be allowed to take that car off the pie so Jaguar can do something else. However, this does not imply that Jaguar will produce small cars. Customers, according to Thierry, want cars with a lot of space, and that demand should be met.
The problem for Jaguar in the short scenario is that they don't have an electric car platform that they like. But they are looking for it and plan to be fully electric by 2025.
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