QOTD: Is Jaguar Doomed?
Monday we reported that Jaguar's lineup is about to undergo some major changes -- changes that will leave the F-Pace as the brand's only model for the "foreseeable future."
It is, of course, possible that new Jaguar Land Rover CEO Adrian Mardell's plan to move the brand way, way upmarket into exotic car territory, with most models being electric, could work. But it also seems a bit incoherent. Jaguar has always been a luxury brand, sure, but not one that sold cars priced in the millions (with a few notable exceptions, of course). It also seems odd that the current lineup will be mostly axed.
Mardell did say that the company wasn't making money on those vehicles, but I'd wager it's because the product wasn't good enough. I liked the E-Pace and XE, but neither was quite good enough to compete against better product in their segments -- the XE especially wasn't good enough to compete with the BMW 3-Series or even Lexus IS.
I had trouble charging an I-Pace. The XF is still a good-looking car but it hasn't seen major updates recently. The F-Type was a fantastic sports car but two-seat sports cars don't sell en masse.
Jaguar has gone through tough times before, and it seems that the historic brand has been mismanaged for as long as I've been alive. So perhaps the iconic British company will survive.
That said, it doesn't seem to bode well when a brand cancels all but one of its models because they weren't profitable -- and instead of promising to replace those models with better, more competitive cars, the boss is saying that its new vehicles will be niche models with price tags that only very few people can afford.
Is Jaguar borked? Or does the leaping cat have nine (or more) lives?
Sound off below.
[Image: Jaguar Land Rover]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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