Jaguar to stop competing with BMW the other Germans

[santoshlv426]

Interesting

https://carbuzz.com/news/jaguars-bmw-ri ... ially-over

If Jaguar is really gonna compete with Bentley and Rolls Royce, the XJ better be something special

Go Jag !!!

[Lunar]

As the linked story states, the new XJ got canned.

[MajorTom]

About time. Seems like they're starting to focus on the right things again - making exciting and somewhat exclusive cars. I've followed the development closely over the years and from the beginning felt that it was bound to fail when they tried to pump up the volumes by starting to release cars that were supposed to compete against ze chermans in the fleet market.

[Hammers]

Was always an impossible fight to win, especially globally. When I look at Australia as the example I know best (though have lived in Asia as well) the German cars are everywhere, not just physically, but advertising, TV's, billboards, radio, sponsorship's. Jaguar do sponsor one AFL team but not much else, and advertising is fairly non existent. You then need to look at the model line-ups and how they were introduced. BMW has the 3 series, Audi the A3, Mercedes the C Class, all pretty well featured cars, then along came the XE to compete and everything was an option you had to pay for, the XF the same. Even the biggest selling cars in Australia like Toyotas have most of the things Jaguar was asking people to pay extra for as standard. I mean folding rear seats? That has been a standard on every car in Australia since Jesus played centre forward for Jerusalem 2nd eleven. In my opinion they got the competition all wrong, they got the market entry all wrong, they got the buyers all wrong, and sales failed miserably. My 14 year old son asked me the other day why does Jaguar build F-Types to compete with sports cars, XE's and XF's to compete with family cars, F-Pace and E-Pace to compete with SUV sales, and I told him because they just don't know what their market is and how to choose a niche and go for it rather than fire scatter gun bullets all over the place and miss everything. Hopefully they get some people with some idea about a direction and a market or else they will fail to exist in the future.

[santoshlv426]

I don't want to see Jaguar fail. As a kid, I never cared much for it - seemed like a really old gent's car to me. As an adult I can now see the beauty of the XJ-S for example.
It is and has always been a niche brand.
But so was Bentley and Rolls Royce, and unless they were bought by the Germans, they would be extinct or in a similar position to Jaguar.
Jaguar is a brand the automotive world can't lose.
If Jaguar makes a quantum leap as they did by getting Ian Callum and his penmanship on board, it will be a formidable brand.

I too lived in Australia and saw the opposite. With their "tall poppy" syndrome, I saw very few German cars. In Perth it was almost non existent. Bit more in Sydney. that market is dominated by the Holden Commodore and Toyota Aurion, the latter of which is a great car.
I think in the 2 years I was there I saw 1 Jaguar XF in PErth !

[mickjaguar]

It seems Jaguar tried to follow the strategy of the German brands by having a hierarchy of cars customers could move between, but this takes a long time to work and it didn't pay off.

The growth challenge for smaller players is getting the customers to move brands. The offering has to be significantly desirable to be 'I really want one of those'. This happened when the first XF was launched, there are still a lot of them on the road. It also happened with Alfa and the 156 and the Fiat 500. Tesla because it's got the range and charging situation.

The current XF is too dull. It's a nice car but isn't 'ooh I want one', so it' was never going to get people out of a 5 series or SUV. Bottom line is you can't do remotely ordinary until there's years of brand loyalty. Very tricky to keep on top of. the game.

The future might just be producing stunning Jags. But we'll all probably be going into Land Rover for after sales, as they won't need all those Jaguar dealerships for niche EVs

[santoshlv426]

My take is that this is historic and a complex case study in consumer behavior.
Post WW2 (and I'm no expert historian), Mercedes, Rolls, Bentley, Jaguar were luxury aspirational brands. BMW not so until 1979 with the 728i to take on Mercedes.
Rolls, Bentley and Jaguar couldn't see the future was not the niche, but for survival they needed models accessible to the masses, which is what MErcedes and BMW saw and tailored the offering to suit.
Rolls, Bentley and Jaguar were taken over.

I don't like the German cars (any more), but I respect their foresight as businesses.

I love the British brands and I think Jaguar is the only one that remains close to it's roots, whereas Rolls and Bentley have more German influence - with the awful styling to match.

[scm]

The Germans also have the myth of German engineering to trade on, too.

[Millwheel]

My brother, a career road warrior and a director of a large PLC, had his choice of the top end marques and worked his way through the lot over many years. He had one Jaguar; his comment “lovely car to drive but the tech was a generation behind the Germans”. As you say, paying hundreds for simple extras irks, especially when the US models are sold fully loaded and with 5 year warranties. The engineering always seems to be underdeveloped and construction haphazard. I remember a factory tour some years ago and being astonished by the complete disinterest of the assembly line workers in their tasks - that and a team beating seven bells with hammers out of an A pillar to get the door to fit. Precision engineering it was not. And yes I’ve seen the Japanese production lines and their obsession with detail.

Having owned five Jag sports coupes now, I suppose I’m a glutton for punishment but in the main they have been reliable enough and the sheer delight of driving them has been, as my brother said, lovely. What has let them down is awful dealers and service. I would hope with EVs that any “servicing” is at the longest possible interval; at the end of the day it’s a glorified washing machine, after all. If Jaguar moves seriously upmarket and the cars move out of reach of people like most of the members of this forum it will be a sad day, though I suppose the used market will be accessible enough without IC engines and transmissions to worry about. Quite why a car without all these complex power plants should cost more is a moot question; batteries may be expensive now but they won’t be in a few years. So what can you do to justify a high price for an EV? Apple get a decent premium for design and ecosystem, perhaps that is the model to copy but it won’t turn Jaguar prices into Aston ones.

The US Air Force expects to get a century of life out of its B52 fleet, with that in mind it may be that, with software updates, we can expect equally astonishing lifetimes for EVs with replacement energy storage at the appropriate time. The impact of this on new car sales will be dramatic.

[scm]

... I suppose the used market will be accessible enough without IC engines and transmissions to worry about.

Of course, IC engines won't have deteriorated to the same extent as an EV battery after 10 years ....