With electric reimagining, brand is moving upscale
New CEO blames positioning for sales slump
When Jaguar turns all-electric, it is also planning to move upmarket. The company’s new boss says that the new family of vehicles is already signed off and that this time they’re going after Bentley and not BMW.
The Reimagine strategy employed by new JLR CEO Thierry Bolloré includes taking the brand all EV starting from 2025. In his first interview since taking over the company, Bolloré has told Auto Express more about what the plan entails.
“So first it’s price. Luxury starts not far from £100,000 (CAD 171,000). And then modern luxury, for us, is something which is extremely reductive, which is getting positioned in a way that fits with Jaguar in terms of refinement, in terms of modernity, in terms of engineering, in terms of technologies,” Bolloré said. “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.”
The executive said Jaguar’s current cars are beautiful, but blames poor sales on that they are aimed at Audi, BMW, and similar brands. He called it “a real issue in the positioning of the brand.”
Expect a sharp transition between Jaguar old and new, with the instruction to the styling department that they are “totally free to reinvent absolutely from scratch what could be the future Jaguar.” Design work on the vehicles is now complete, he said, and the game is on to find a suitable electric platform. Now the company will need to do that in just a few short years.
