There is not much in the German media, but an automotive industry journal has something. As those articles are behind a Paywall and in German, here are some details.
One article is from September 2021. The title means: Jaguar repositioning: The dealers' fear of luxury
It says that dealers fear about their investments. There is no strategy at all, Jaguar has not given any informations. The unofficial "next on Bentley level" made it even worse. According to the dealer association, since 2016 JLR dealers in Germany made investments of 160 million Euro. And they need to continue to do so, as they signed contracts. But those were based on now obsolete plans. The former expecations were 10,000 yearly Jaguar sales with further increases. The Jaguar dealers have an investment protection, so dealership terminations would be expensive. There is a huge difference between premium and luxury dealeships. Bentley has 12 dealerships in Germany.
The second article is from three days ago. With the title: Double Interview Jaguar Land Rover: "Fundamentally different requirements"
Taking part are the German JLR manager and a dealer representative. The dealer representative said 2021 was a difficult year. And they fear that 22 will not get better. Asked "Are traders ready to invest further?" he answers "The problem for traders is that the conditions have changed fundamentally since the investment agreements were made. The sales expectations are completely different than five years ago."
Another question is "The market expectation as part of the CI investments was initially 10,000 new cars at Jaguar, now Jaguar is significantly less than half. If the brand wants to go into the luxury segment, as announced by JLR boss Thierry Bollore, there are significantly fewer."
The JLR manager answers with "
We have clearly positioned Jaguar for the future. After 2025, the brand will be more luxurious and purely electric. Jaguar has always been the smaller brand, and the current situation shows that you can also achieve a good return with less volume. We also have two brands: Jaguar and Land Rover. We want to undertake the journey with both brands together with our dealers. But first we want to overcome the semiconductor crisis.
Only when we know the facts, we want to take the next steps."
The dealer representatives answer is a bit shorter "It is a huge problem for the dealers that they cannot assess the situation at Jaguar."
The manager is then asked "Luxury brands have significantly smaller networks. Do you want to keep the current network size of 91 dealerships when Jaguar becomes a Bentley competitor?"
His answer is "
We will announce our plans in due course. But we plan to go into the future together with our dealers. The physical experience is very important to our brands, although we cannot give an existence guarantee to our retailers.
Of course you can always find a hair in the soup. The decisive factor is that the cards at Jaguar Land Rover are on the table. In 2030, every model will have an all-electric variant. The first new all-electric model will be the Range Rover in 2024."
I made some parts bold... not that hair is the predominent content of the soup that dealers need to stomach.
Goof find. The dealers' patience will soon run out and the lawyers will be sent in. It's just a matter then of how much JLR will be sued for damages, potentially €billions - whether the Dual Arch etc thing was just poor management or deceit/fraud - cockup or conspiracy.
If the latter can be proven, then it's good night JLR - the whole thing, not just JLR Deutschland.
While JLR is mired in stuff going back to 2013, with Dual Arch, Speth's moonshot for full-line Jaguar, and JLR at 1 million units/yr global by 2018-2020, the world is about equally 9 years ahead of JLR, with landmark 500 mile EVs:
The 2016 F-Pace with a squashed roof, 'I-Pace', now seems as old as, well, 6 years. Its real range at 70 mph in around 60 degrees F is around 200 miles..
This could also be why TSLA dropped so much last Friday - Moloney(usual Irish spelling of Tom's name) hinted at this figure on the InsideEVs podcast on Friday - see below from 40:45 - that driving at 70 mph took longer to drain the battery than a flight from NJ to UK - i.e., ~7h x 70 mph = 490 miles, plus he did this test some time ago, and word may have leaked out.
Later in that podcast, Tom also mentions that Mercedes appear to have pulled the EQS he was just about to do the same test for. I wonder why? Obviously Mercedes highups got freaked out by the then becoming known Lucid's figure. The EQS ('580' dual motor) would probably have done 400 miles, maybe low 400s. Look like so much pig iron now - the engineers will be told to find +10% by hook or crook, immediately.
Lucid has reset the game, like Rivian has done for posh, 'adventure' pickups, and the soon SUV version.
Tesla who? Why would you buy a Plaid Model S for maybe 0.5 seconds less 0-60 when you could have a Lucid Air for same or less money? JLR who? Oh yeah, the outfit that lists a 200 mile range EV slower than a Model 3 with no back seat for $100k - HSE spec.
I can't stand why EVs are pushed - the CAGW thing - but I admire the engineering, from Lucid, Rivian, Porsche Taycan, iX, and no doubt others to come - the new BEV XC90/Polestar 3?
You can almost hear the sound of those claimed 30,000 orders for the New Range Rover being torn up, many of which will have come from the US, and many from California. An EV that can do LA to San Fran in one go, legitimately, with fuel at over $5/gal, and the Range Rover V8 doing maybe 15 mpg tops, so around $300 fuel cost for a round trip, is a true gamechanger, a true, huge disruptor.
If Tesla looks old hat, a spent force, with Lucid, Rivian, arguably the iX, Taycan, and probably new Volvo/Polestar EV SUV, what does that make JLR? Prehistoric? Irrelevant surely.
europe.autonews.com
