There’s a certain kind of person who buys Jags and they (mainly hims) are not going to like this. it’s an epic Ratner esq moment.
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I remember on Top Gear that they always used to characterise them as Terry-Thomas type cads who always made an excuse along the lines of, “I left my wallet in the Jaaaag.”
The thing is, is that kind of buyer actually dying out? The sort of person who used to buy that sort of thing now seems to buy an SUV, or a crossover, whatever that is meant to be.
In fact, many, if not most executive cars seem to come with horrible interiors now. I’ve not sure that kind of old-money craftsmanship is even valued any more. It’s all about the “infotainment” system.
I’m not sure it is. Ratner had contempt for his customers. This seems to be hinting that they think their customers are after something slightly different. That may be equally ill conceived, but it isn’t contempt.
The new Jaguar logo reminded me of something that I think I’ve just placed:
It’s Chanel. Are they trying to place the brand towards the sort of people who would buy luxury fashion items? The fashion models on the TV advert and the pink and blue concept models might be pointing that way.
No question that’s what they’re doing. But in doing so alienating their core market. This isn’t Aston Martin or Lambo, people are not going to fork out deep 6 figures for a jag. Ditching the cat? Crackers. They started going down hill when they put their badge on a Mondeo. There will be a lot of people who won’t move to electric till they’re forced to legally. A very good strategy now would be to embrace petrol and do sumptuous luxury snarling V8s and V12s whilst they still can. Those of a polar bear hugging mentality might slightly disagree but electricity is not generated by unicorn farts and morning dew.
I wonder if the new Jag will appeal to the far east market? Increasingly that part of the world is crucial for car brands, and maybe Jaguar is rolling the dice and gambling on a new, bigger market, while leaving behind the 50+ year old traditional UK male?
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That’s precisely the point I’m making.
Like @RedWhippet said, that market died a while ago, like the dinosaurs that its members are. They lost that flavour around 2008 when the original XF was launched. They just became another Mercedes-Benz/BMW/Audi competitor, but with marginally less competitive vehicles and a smaller lineup. Perhaps the F-Type might have been more unique, but even those are too low-volume to really matter.
The trend is towards SUVs/crossovers, but Jaguar’s own lineup hasn’t done too well with those, and in any case, why would JLR cannibalise Land Rover? Is there enough to differentiate the brands from each other?
The trouble with this reboot is that then it has no holdover identity. It might as well be some wannabe out of China.
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They have no core market anymore, exactly because of what you said. The Jaguar brand just simply doesn’t have any particular cachet.
Spoiler alert – that isn’t too far away, and like it or not, they don’t have the scale to develop new V8s nor V12s and recoup their investments in time. Cars don’t just develop themselves out of thin air, it would probably be 2027 by the time they could launch something.
Doesn’t matter a fuck to me what they bung in their ads (although agree they’re “weird”).
I’m way too young to drive a Jaguar.
Hideous cars anyway
I’ve literally not seen a single defence of the ads, that’s the worst part…
Very much on topic here…
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Ditto x 2
Not the right/enough infrastructure to both run/maintain them comfortably or deal with the waste that arises when they die.
Hired an electric van for a weekend recently. Did 50 miles ish in it. Waited for an hour to put it on charge, waited 35 mins for it to charge and it cost £38 to charge. Fucking lunacy.
Pretty sure once the congestion charges apply to them, the novelty will fade
It’s not a novelty, it just makes sense financially in many cases.
The infrastructure is scaling up rapidly, and I’m not sure what special maintenance you’re talking about?
Except the spectre of that is rather overblown. Batteries are lasting longer than the usual scare stories, and even then I think there are recycling solutions coming online soon.
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Re maintain i was referring to the charging facilities themselves, my post wasn’t clear on that. They dont always work, and there are often none available when needed, esp if you don’t have charging facilities at home. The amount of electric cars on the road are rising way faster than the facilities away from the home. The larger capacity battery cars can avoid the need to charge away from home though.
Re recycling, this is the area that concerns me more than infrastructure. I work in the waste stargey and planning side of things and in the UK there arent many facilties to deal with the waste, that is hazardous in nature, complex to manage, and heavily regulated. Locating these facilities isnt easy (planning and nimbys), therefore like with a lot of waste, we may have to rely on exporting the waste abroad.
I’m not against electric cars or anything like that, just concerned about the lack of pace in development of the elements around electric cars required beyond them being on the road.
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That’s quite fascinating, because you would think that this could/would provide jobs in and of itself, and it would be something governments would be interested in, especially since it’s relatively high-value.
Also, traditional fuel stations would also have the same requirements of maintenance, so the big question is, is it just the charging facilities’ owners just trying to skimp out?
Agreed, I think it’s highly important, but while there are opportunities, especially with the additional time the longer-than-expected battery lifespans are buying us, governments seem to be squandering this precious time by not doing anything to deal with this problem.
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I’ve noticed in Germany that there are many leisure facilities that have installed charging points, for example the local sports facilities and a McDonald’s.
I think you will see businesses using these to attract business. Similar in Scotland, actually, as you get charging facilities at cafés and sports stadiums.
The problem is, that as EVs become more popular, there is more chance that the charging points will be occupied, which isn’t what you want when planning a journey.
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To extrapolate upon that point, imagine a world where everyone drove an electric vehicle, and every parking spot in your local supermarket car park or, say, sports stadium would have its own charging point.
Where would so much electricity be generated? There’s no way, with current technology at least, that it would all be “green” electricity.
That’s one of the reasons why I always say that the best car is no car.
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