How Jaguar plans to save itself

British carmaker Jaguar is undaunted by the criticism its recent rebranding campaign generated.

A video launching the overhaul went viral online as commenters critiqued the company’s design choices, called the company “woke,” and questioned why the ad did not feature a car. 

But experts say the company’s real challenge is executing its plan to save itself after years of slumping sales and a brand many say is weakened and diluted.

“The eyes of the world are upon us at this point in time, which is exactly what we wanted,” said Jaguar’s managing director Rawdon Glover. “So in that sense, we have everybody’s attention. And I think for me, it’s fantastic — that we can now actually talk about the vehicle.”

Jaguar unveiled a concept car — the Type 00 — at Miami Art Week on Monday. Glover said the first actual production model Jaguar is expected to launch in 2026 and will closely resemble the concept.

The car is a four-door, all-electric grand tourer, which means it’s a sedan or wagon-like vehicle that combines high performance with comfort and styling.

Jaguar Land Rover hit an annual sales record in 2017. Though that was largely thanks to the success of Land Rover’s three lines of muscular SUVs, Jaguar sales hit 178,601, a 20% increase over the previous year, at that point. They then hit an all-time high in 2018, thanks to Jaguar’s compact E-Pace SUV and its critically acclaimed I-PACE electric vehicle.

But things started to slip. Jaguar sold 64,241 units worldwide for 2023, a fraction of what it had in 2017.

Several factors led to the decrease, analysts said. One was a broader market shift toward SUVs that Jaguar — historically a sports car and sedan maker — was not well suited to. A series of owners, including larger automakers such as Ford Motor, also struggled to support Jaguar.

Jaguar’s struggles are not unique, said Karl Brauer, executive analyst for iSeeCars, a car shopping website and data provider. Lots of smaller niche brands, such fellow British carmaker Aston Martin, have also struggled.

“The two are kind of similar in so many ways,” he said, “and that includes this kind of struggle to find economic viability, you know, to have this brand that’s super well known and powerful and desirable and turn that into a business case that is profitable.”

Ford and current owner Tata Motors pushed Jaguar toward producing more cars, something analysts and insiders call an error.

“Going volume definitely didn’t help,” said Charles Tennant, an independent auto analyst who is both the former chief engineer at Land Rover and a former director at Tata Motors, who advised the Indian carmaker on the Jaguar and Land Rover acquisition.

“It weakened the brand significantly, until we get to a point where we are the last few years,” Tennant added.

Jaguar had once been one of the most admired names in the automotive world. it made several cars considered true classics in its earlier decades — roughly the 1930s through the ’60s — including the E-Type, a small sports car.

When it debuted at the Geneva Auto Show in 1961, it is said that Enzo Ferrari — the creator of the prestigious Italian brand bearing his name — called the E-Type “the most beautiful car in the world.”

“Jaguar’s one of the most iconic British brands to ever exist in the car world,” said Karl Brauer, executive analyst for iSeeCars, a car shopping website and data provider. “There’s a huge kind of brand equity and value within the Jaguar name, and it’s been somewhat sad to watch the brand struggle increasingly over the last few decades.”

The automaker wants to recapture its legacy. To do that, it has all but halted production on its cars and will will basically disappear from the market until 2026, when it returns with its fully electric GT that will start at about $120,000 — far above the typical Jaguar price range.

“Think about what the E-Type when it landed in 1961, in Geneva,” Glover said. “There was nothing else on the planet that looked like that. To have the courage and the conviction to say, ‘Actually, this is what we think a sports car should look like, and that’s the essence of Jaguar.’ So what we’re doing with this reinvention of the brand at the moment is we’re very much we’re taking it back to its natural habitat.”

Not everyone is convinced it will work. Apart from the firestorm over the rebranding, some analysts say the Jaguar may have a tough time standing out in a high-end EV market is already crowded.

“There’s more vehicles than there are consumers in that price range,” said Jessica Caldwell, head of insights for car shopping site and data provider Edmunds. “When you look at what Lucid‘s doing or even, GMC Hummer — all of these very expensive electric vehicles — it seems like it’s over-catering to a small market.”

Watch the video to learn more.