Analysis
Claws are
out as Jaguar heads down EV rebrand road
Jasper Jolly
A new
electric model will be unveiled this week. Will it turn round the culture war
embroiling the marque?
Sun 1 Dec
2024 02.00 EST
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/dec/01/claws-are-out-as-jaguar-heads-down-ev-rebrand-road
When German
manufacturer BMW took over the Mini brand and launched the Mini Cooper in 2001,
some people were outraged. Drivers with previous models even slapped on bumper
stickers reading “this is a real Mini”. The BBC reported that executives
insisted the car “is not a small BMW”.
The storm
died down, and Mini has gone on to sell more cars each year (about 300,000)
than ever before, many of them emblazoned with union jack tail-lights –
whatever the ownership of the factory.
Another
British car brand now hopes to follow a similar course through a barrage of
controversy – albeit one supercharged in the social media age. Jaguar will, on
Monday, unveil a first electric concept car in Miami. Yet this time it has not
been the car that has provoked anger, but rather a 30-second teaser trailer
featuring a diverse group of models walking around a vaguely alien landscape.
“Copy nothing” is the tagline, channelling Jaguar founder William Lyons, while
signalling a decisive break with the past.
The backlash
has been shocking. Tesla boss Elon Musk responded to the video on his social
network, X, asking, “do you sell cars?” (bringing the campaign to millions).
The Daily Mail drew attention to unrelated remarks about diversity by a
mid-level marketing executive who it wrongly said had “masterminded” the
rebrand, which it labelled “woke”. That unleashed a rush of culture warriors
and the online far right – plus a torrent of homophobia and transphobia in the
advert’s wake.
All this
before the public has even seen the car.
The actual
mastermind of the rebrand is Gerry McGovern, chief creative officer of JLR, the
Indian-owned parent company of struggling Jaguar and very successful Land
Rover. He has made it clear that provocation was part of the plan. “He wants to
stir things up,” said someone who has worked with him.
JLR tore up
the Jaguar plan in 2021, cancelling an electric XJ and aiming to be EV-only –
and very expensive – by 2025
“They
clearly can’t carry on with Jaguar as it is,” said David Bailey, a professor of
business economics at the University of Birmingham. The brand may be beloved,
but sales fell from 180,000 in 2018 to fewer than 67,000 in its 2023 financial
year.
“It has been
in decline,” said Bailey. “It hasn’t been able to compete against the likes of
BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi in the premium market.”
JLR tore up
the Jaguar plan in 2021, cancelling an electric version of the venerable XJ
saloon and instead aiming to be electric-only – and much more expensive – by
2025.
Corporate
logic, as much as creative impulse, has dictated design choices. Jaguar had a
great design success with its award-winning I-Pace electric vehicle – still the
only EV sold by JLR – but the brand could not go further down the SUV path with
Jaguar in case it cannibalised profitable Land Rover sales.
Instead,
pictures of a heavily camouflaged car published by Autocar magazine show a
grand tourer with the profile of an American muscle car. Teaser images show
that it has also dispensed with the rear windscreen (in favour of a digital
rear-view mirror – a move, already embraced by electric rival Polestar, that
allows for better aerodynamic form ) as well as the “growler” cat logo.
Ginny
Buckley, the boss of British EV-buying website Electrifying.com, has seen the
new Jaguar but agreed not to disclose details yet. But, she said, “nothing has
made my jaw drop as much in 27 years of reporting on cars”.
Buckley said
response from her readers and listeners to the rebrand was split between people
applauding the bold statement and others who thought it had abandoned the
spirit of classics such as the 1960s E-Type sportscar (although a common theme
was that they had been appalled by the homophobic reaction). But that fits with
the plan: despite implausible “inclusive” branding, the company is trying to
sell fewer, more expensive cars. It expects only a small fraction of previous
Jaguar buyers to go for the new models, which will be made in Solihull. Jaguar
expects to make its first deliveries in 2026, and the price is expected to at
the £100,000 mark – compared with an average of about £55,000 now.
This may not
be the worst time for a change of direction. There is already a lot of evidence
that consumers have become more fickle in the electric age, with less complex
engineering to differentiate brands. China’s electric brands have benefited in
particular, winning share in a struggling EV market where before they were
bit-part players.
“Copy
nothing” may be standard woolly brandspeak, but it also reflects car companies’
tricky position. The global industry is going through an unprecedented change
in the transition to electric. There is no existing playbook to copy.
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