Did Jaguar ‘go woke and go broke'? No, it's more complicated than that

Independent

2 days ago

It's genuinely unnerving, not to say upsetting, when even supposedly mainstream media report news which is not news, and where the reader is, knowingly or not, entirely misinformed about why.
It's especially upsetting, I should add, for those of us who care about such things, when it concerns a venerated marque and a slice of what's left of the British motor industry.
I refer of course to Jaguar, maker of some of the most beautiful, graceful and exhilarating cars in history. All last week there were headlines such as 'Go woke, go broke! Jaguar sales have crashed 97.5% since rebrand that stunned fans' and 'WOKE WOE Jaguar sales plummet 97.5% after fierce backlash over woke pink 'rebrand' that left fans slamming 'nonsense' EV'. 'Jaguar is heading for oblivion' was actually one of the more accurate ones, but only because it's been heading for oblivion on and off for most of the last half-century. 'Jaguar still alive' would be a better story.
Coincidence is not causation, even when it makes for a neat woke-broke narrative. It's perfectly true that, in some quarters, the pink-themed androgynous models featured in a brand awareness ad a few months ago made some folk choke on their gammon. The new concept car, a wildly ostentatious, you might well say camp, deco-retro design with an improbably long phallic bonnet also caused similar controversy when it was subsequently revealed. (That was, by the way, one of the most successful attention-grabbing PR campaigns in recent times. As you see, we're still talking about it).
It's also true that Jaguar sales have indeed collapsed. But that is really because, erm, Jaguar has basically stopped making cars. There's been no sales 'backlash' against the dramatic new electric pink thing with the odd 'jaGuar' logo because you can't order something that doesn't exist yet. It's a concept car. It might happen; it might not. Rarely do such outlandish ideas end up in the showrooms. The 'collapse in sales' has nothing to do with anything other than the ending of production. It's like saying that sales of Morris or Hillman cars have 'collapsed' in 2025. If Jaguar were still making their stylish saloons, sports cars and SUVs people would be happy to buy them; pink wasn't even a special paint option.
But why isn't Jaguar making any vehicles? Two good reasons, neither 'woke'. First, the owners of the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) group, Tata of India, weren't making any money on them, and there was no immediate hope of a return to profitability. There were in fact rumours not so long ago that the storied brand would be retired permanently, which would be a terrible shame, but make obvious commercial sense, and so allow the company to concentrate on its lucrative Range Rovers. Apparently, the boss, Ratan Tata, who died last year, wouldn't hear of it, but we can't be sure. In any case, happily, the second reason for Jaguar ceasing production of its internal combustion engine models, plus one slow-selling EV, was so that JLR could re-tool and reposition itself as an up-market, super luxury, advanced, thoroughly modern and profitable all-electric brand.
A big ask for anyone in the automotive business, that, but it's not impossible. There are some interesting recent precedents. The Lotus Eletre, for example, is a huge, dramatically styled super-premium all-electric SUV far removed from the little sports cars Lotus is renowned for, but it seems to be doing OK. Lotus is majority owned by the Chinese giant Geely these days, which has the financial muscle to revive this other beloved yet neglected make, and which, we learn, will still be making cars in Norfolk, even though the Eletre comes in from Wuhan (no jokes in poor taste, please).
Lotus, like Jaguar, had virtually disappeared before getting an infusion of cash and creativity from its new foreign owners. In a different sector, in mass-produced family cars, Shanghai Automotive also managed to exhume the MG brand and make it a major player in the family car 'crossover' SUV market. Again, that seemed a hopeless project to many pundits, but the buying public said different.
Another, historic, example, would be how Volkswagen in the 1970s managed to escape from its reliance on the ageing Beetle by inventing the Golf, which soon defined and dominated its sector and helped the company stage a textbook 'product-led' recovery.
The lesson seems to be that if you have a well-known and much-loved brand that has lost its way then you can, sometimes, defy your critics and turn things around. The next generation of all-electric Jaguars, Land Rovers and Range Rovers will share platforms, power packs, electronics and much else, which will help reduce costs, and with the right styling and marketing, they'll thrive. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with. There's life in the old cat yet.