Jaguar is set to embark on a bold strategy as part of its transition to becoming an electric-only brand; the company says it will not sell a single car for an entire year.
The British brand has pledged to become a “fully electric luxury brand” from 2025, but to achieve this it says it will need to take a 12-month break from the market.
Its last combustion engine model to remain on sale will be the F-Pace SUV, which will cease production early next year.
The F-Pace is Jag’s only remaining car after it recently confirmed that the I-Pace EV and E-Pace SUV will soon cease production.
Jag’s one-year hiatus: Once production of the F-Pace SUV ends in 2025, there won’t be a new Jaguar to buy until deliveries of the first new-era EV arrive in 2026
Jaguar CEO Rawdon Glover told Autocar: “Yes, there will be a period when you won’t be able to buy a Jaguar.”
Jaguar CEO Rawdon Glover said: Coach In an interview he said that there will be a period in which No The Jaguars will go on sale in the UK.
He confirmed that UK deliveries of the brand’s flagship new electric GT will not begin before 2026, leaving a gap of around a year when drivers will not be able to buy a new Jaguar in the UK.
“Yes, there will be a period when you won’t be able to buy a Jaguar,” he said.
Glover has confirmed it will temporarily exit some European markets before the end of the year, but its flagship combustion-engined SUV will remain available to UK customers until early 2025.
With the F-Pace discontinued in a matter of months, that leaves a year in which Jaguar will not have a single new car on sale to the public.
At the time, Glover told Autocar that retailers will focus on used cars and after-sales services.
To keep drivers interested and the vehicles excited, Jaguar will unveil the first concept of its next-generation all-electric line-up in December.
It will be a four-door, low-roof GT with a completely new design language for Jaguar that will define the brand’s exclusively electric future.
It is likely to cost around £100,000 and have a range of more than 435 miles and a 575bhp engine.
Jaguar bosses promise it will be the most powerful car it has ever sold.
The two models that will follow in the footsteps of the GT will be a large sedan and an SUV and should arrive in 2028.
How Jaguar has already cut car production
In March, Jaguar announced it would cut production to just SUV models this year, while boldly pushing ahead with its ambitions to go all-electric from 2025.
Birmingham’s Castle Bromwich factory stopped building cars in June, scrapping the XE, XF and F-Type models, all of which were built there, in the process.
For the rest of the year, only the E-Pace, F-Pace and the electric I-Pace SUVs would be built in Austria, before finally abandoning the internal combustion engine.
Jaguar’s car factory in Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, stopped producing cars in June as the British manufacturer accelerates a transition to becoming an exclusively electric vehicle manufacturer from 2025.
But just as soon as this news broke, it was revealed at a meeting with investors that this plan had been updated and that all remaining cars would be eliminated except one.
Automotive News Europe reported that CEO Adrian Mardell told investors on June 19: ‘We are eliminating five products, all of which are lower value.
“None of these are vehicles we make money on, so we’re replacing them with new vehicles with newly designed architectures.”
The five models dropped by parent group JLR (formerly Jaguar Land Rover) were the F-Type sports car, E-Pace compact SUV, XE mid-size sedan, XF premium sedan and I-Pace electric SUV, all of which offer “close to zero profitability”.
The only model remaining in production is the F-Pace, Jaguar’s answer to a full-size luxury SUV.
I-Pace axed: Jaguar announced that its only existing electric vehicle is among five models to be axed this year, ahead of the brand restructuring as an electric-only luxury brand. In total, more than 60,000 Jaguar I-Pace models have been sold worldwide
The XE sedan is another model being phased out, as it will be discontinued later this year.
Renault chief executive Luca De Meo (pictured) has said the 2035 deadline for reaching 100% electric new cars is unrealistic and called for “more flexibility” in the timetable for moving to electric vehicles.
Fiat Chief Executive Olivier Francois said the carmaker would reintroduce a petrol version of its 500 city car due to a lack of demand for electric vehicles, particularly among older drivers.
Even as other manufacturers including Fiat, Ford, Renault and Porsche have scaled back their 2030/2035 electric plans due to weak private demand, Jaguar is stepping up its efforts to go all-electric almost a decade earlier than some brands.
Manufacturing distinctive new electric cars is also part of the plan, and Glover says the indistinguishable EVs on offer in the market are partly to blame for the lack of new EV sales.
‘If you look at it, it’s a fairly homogeneous sector and I suspect that might be part of the reason why the EV sector has stagnated a bit.
“What we really want to do is create a car that really challenges some of those conventions.”
He continued: ‘We have chosen to prioritise value over volume, and that is why we have opted for the price levels we have chosen.
“I wouldn’t say that the development of the electric vehicle market is irrelevant, but I think it’s less relevant than it would be if it were in a more commoditized volume segment.”
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