Whatever the answer may be I hope it isn't by building cars more like those three. I'm afraid it might be.

 

Jaguar have at last the bare bones of a product line up after years of filling the short term holes in Ford's offering, but it's still only the bare bones. F-Pace is crucial, as will be the upcoming sub F-Pace SUV (E-Pace?). Next comes the electric vehicles; will jag be able to bring something new to this new sector?

To be a serious alternative to the Germans in these sectors, Jaguar need products that at least match the competition, and ideally (Like XF and XE) better them.

 

Jaguar doesn't have nearly the same product range as the Germans. Jaguar has three and soon four different models. The Germans have four or five product lines, which each consists of a saloon, a station wagon, a tall SUV/cross-over and perhaps a coupé and a cabriolet. Add to that special models like electric vehicles (BMW i3 and i8), supercars (Audi R8, BMW i8, some Mercedes no doubt), cheaper models at half the price of a Jaguar, small economic cars and so on. I have long since stopped keeping track of them.
Jaguar has been making and still mainly makes ordinary saloon cars and a few sports cars. Saloon cars have become less and less popular with the appearance of specialised car types and niche cars like many of those, I have mentioned. In the old days, when a man became able to afford a luxury car, he would buy a saloon car. Often he would even hire a chauffeur to drive him around. Theses days, when a businessman has success and becomes wealthy, he'll more often want a supercar, a large SUV or some other "different" car than a boring old fashioned saloon car.
I don't mind, that Jaguar is a more niche like car maker with only a few models. I think the smorgasbord of models from the German car makers is too much. But if you want to be a large car maker and sell lots of cars, you'll need a lot of different models. That way you can prevent the costumer from going to the competing car makers, when he needs or wants a different kind of car.

 

Ironically, the apparently varied product lines of the three Germans are generally much the same and built on multi format platforms.

Jaguar is now doing the same with the new XE/XF/F Pace platform.

Most interesting to see will be the replacement for the F Type and the new XK, also no doubt based on the XE/XF/F Type platform.

The F Type was a dusted off version of the XK and suffers accordingly. It was and remains an important car for Jaguar but it was definitely a stop gap version of the sportscars to be built to fill out Jaguar's ultimate product plan.

The F Pace is an XF built as a Sportbrake but taller and shorter. In reality it is a fashionable version of the much more useful Sportbrake. Such is the nature of fashion: tight pointy shoes, suits with narrow torso and flat front trousers all just to be different for a short period before fashion swings back to more comfort and utility. Just awful really.

 

I just purchased a XF 3.0 DS comming out of a really good BMW and previously owned (previous 3 cars) 2 Lexus GS450H (great cars) and a Mercedes E320CDi. I chose the XF for many reasons including looks, exclusivity, great reviews, performance and reliability (JD power survey results). I have only driven it for approx 250 miles so it's early days but despite a few teething troubles I am starting to fall in love with the car. I mention this first to demonstrate I am not a Jaguar "hater" which I want to highlight before you read the following.

Whilst this was in the garage for some repairs I was given a brand new top of the range XE S petrol supercharged & fully loaded. I loved the looks and think it looks more special than the 3 series, C class and A4. As well as great looks the seats were really good and performance was strong. There were so many rattles I could not have lived with the car and far too many hard scratchy plastics littered everywhere. The dashboard had a fake leather finish with stitches to give the impression it was genuine leather, I thought this was dreadful on a £50K car. I remember thinking if the dealer said I could keep it in place of my 3 year old XF (worth half the value) but couldn't sell it I would turn the offer down.

Jaguar do loads right and I love their line up of cars. I think if Jaguar wants to seriously increase its market share (and I am sure it could) the XE needs an interior to match its exterior (a little different, high quality, soft materials and rattle free) and a smaller cheaper hatchback that stands out as well as a XE size coupe.

My dad had a life long love affair with Jaguars and Daimlers and I have now started on the same path so really hoping Jaguar continue to go from strength to strength.

 

This has been discussed endlessly here. Here are few of the things the Germans do that Jaguar does not:

1 - Captive Financing Arm. in key markets like North America the Germans underwrite their own lease and finance deals. Jaguar is permanently handicapped having to work through commercial banks.

2 - Lack of competitive powertrains. Jaguar has not gasoline turbo engines (the meat of the market globally) other than the old Ecoboost 2.0 they source from Ford. They have no hybrids. They have no pure electric. They have no dual-clutch transmissions.

3 - Dealer network. Their dealer network is ridiculously uncompetitive in most markets. In addition, their dealers have been on life-support for year due to the steep decline in Jaguar volumes in the past 15 years.

4 - Product gaps. That is being partially addressed with the F-Pace and XE. BMW, Mercedes and Audi have SUVs in 4 different sizes, even Porsche has 2 sizes. And BMW, Mercedes and BMW have models below the XE (1/2-Series, A3, CLA).

Put it all together and there is no hope for Jaguar to have a market share anywhere near the Germans anytime soon. But They probably hit their low point in 2015, and will now start to improve slightly.