How does a brand go from having such high aspirational value to something that’s not even being considered when buying a new car?
If you were to take a random poll, you probably will find a lot of fans who love Jaguar. The brand has an incredible allure and many even consider it to be more premium than Mercedes-Benz & BMW! So, why is it that no one is buying Jaguars? When was the last time you saw a relative, friend or colleague getting a brand-new Jaguar home?
Here’s a similar thread by GTO on the performance of Audi.
Jaguar is at an all-time low in terms of sales, piggybacking off Land Rover’s profits & strengths. How does a brand go from having such high aspirational value to something that’s not even being considered when buying a new car?
Here are some of the factors that are hampering the brand. Please feel free to add more to the discussion.
No relevant SUVs / Crossovers in a market crazy about them! Jaguar has merely 1 luxury SUV in the F-Pace and that’s too old & outdated now. The small E-Pace isn’t sold in India (it’s also 6 years old), while the I-Pace will remain a bit player (it’s electric & expensive). This is especially surprising as sister company Land Rover-Range Rover thrives on its SUV & Crossover line-up.
Aging, outdated product line: Other than a tiny SUV line-up, Jaguar has 2 sedans (XE and XF) and a sports car (F-Type) on sale. The sedans are quite old & outdated (2015 launches), while the F-Type has been around for 9 years (2014 debut). And these aren’t really bringing in any huge numbers. In 2021, more units of the Jeep Wrangler were sold in the UK than the Jaguar XF! Jaguar’s mass-market sedan, the XE is being outsold by the S-Class since 2018 in Europe! In India, we just have the F-Pace, I-Pace and F-Type. The sedans were discontinued, and it doesn’t really leave customers with a lot of options. Can you guess why the sedans were discontinued? Yep, awful sales. No one really bought them.
In the era of Jaguar under Tata, new models and platforms were introduced with heavy investments. However, the cars haven’t been updated which has resulted in making them irrelevant in the market.
Faulty strategy? Thierry Bolloré, the former CEO of JLR took over in 2020 and came up with the ‘Reimagine’ strategy to go fully electric by 2025. This seems like a step in the positive direction, but one cannot abandon ICE customers altogether. According to the strategy, this will be a fresh start meaning, all the cars in their current line-up will be trashed. New cars, new platforms, new everything. While the strategy on paper looks great, “all-electric” also means that petrol & diesel car buyers will have to ignore the brand. Fact is, petrol & diesel luxury cars will enjoy good demand way beyond 2025 and Jaguar is dumping them.
It also means that the tiny line-up will continue. Luxury cars require billions of dollars in development costs and Jaguar-Land Rover doesn’t have that kind of R&D spend for a wide product line. At least at the start of the “reimagine” strategy.
Discontinuing the flagship XJ! In lieu of the new strategy, the new XJ which was the flagship limousine was cancelled. Remember that the XJ was already in final pre-production testing and was even designed as a pure electric vehicle. But since it didn’t align with the vision of the future, it was canned. This would’ve been the perfect vehicle for the transition – how can a luxury brand not have a flagship luxury limousine? We are especially disappointed as, at the time of launch, the XJ had a wow factor unmatched by any of its German competitors.
In terms of having a flagship SUV, Range Rover has never been inclined to share its flagship with Jaguar. In fact, we see a shocking lack of sharing between Land Rover / Range Rover and Jaguar. I don’t understand why we don’t have more SUVs shared between the two, but with different bodies, interiors, branding etc. (like the VAG group with Audi + Porsche + Lamborghini, Toyota-Lexus, BMW-Rolls Royce, Mercedes-Maybach etc.).
Incomplete engines & Transmissions: Compare the powertrain options of the Jaguar and its competitors and you will immediately notice the difference. The German competitors offer something for everyone, as in this segment, a 4-cylinder petrol and diesel would do the job, but you need a 6-cylinder diesel or petrol to keep things exciting. The 3.0L V6 diesel and the V6 supercharged petrol engines that were offered on the F-Pace never made it to India. Even the XE was offered only with the 2.0L petrol engine that too in a lower state of tune in India. The engine wasn’t as explosive as say the 2.0L BMW 330i and the transmission tuning was pretty sad. One of the reasons why buyers preferred the German brands over Jaguar.
Boring lineup: Jaguars have been known for impressive engines and explosive performance. But if you look at the lineup today, all you find are the 2.0-litre 4-cylinder units. Gone are the supercharged V6 and V8 engines. Or even the 6-cylinder diesel!! The previous XF’s supercharged V8 offered a good challenge to the M5, but not anymore. XE Project 8 was limited to just 300 units. The F-Type has always been an exciting and cool-looking car. But the rivals caught up soon and made better products.
Reliability and After-Sales service quality: This is an area where Jaguar has really trailed the Germans & Lexus. Word on the street is, their reliability is patchy (related article), the after-sales network is small, and the service quality is a hit or miss. Long wait periods for certain spare parts are a customer complaint.
Missing Aspirational Value: Because of all of the above points (in particular the lack of crossovers, outdated product lineup, and boring engines), the brand is losing out on its aspirational value. The allure & aura that Jaguar cars had in the 2000s & before is missing today. I’m sure a lot of BHPians will agree when I say that Jaguars used to make drool-worthy cars, but not anymore.
End of the day, great products can resurrect iconic brands (Rolls Royce, Maybach) or take them to an entirely new level of volumes (e.g. Porsche). I firmly believe that the brand “Jaguar” can become really strong again on the back of exceptional cars. But it needs an awesome, relevant product line for that. As they say in the automotive industry, there is no problem that a good car cannot solve.
What are your thoughts on this? Is Jaguar walking right into another pitfall? Or will the ‘Rise from the Ashes’ strategy put it back on the map?
Keyword: Analysis: The downfall of Jaguar in the Indian market