Jaguar just posted a 97.5% sales collapse in Europe for April 2025. That’s 49 cars sold. Not 49,000. Forty-nine. Down from nearly 2,000 in the same month last year. Year-to-date sales across Europe are off more than 75%. Globally, Jaguar is selling fewer than 27,000 cars a year, an 85% drop from where they were in 2018.
Sounds like they had a lot of problems already.
I expect you know this already, so why are Jaguar not selling any cars?
I am loathed to beat up on EVs, but Jaguar were early to market with a model that didn't sell well, except to Google for their self driving cars. It was a good car, as SUVs go, but they did not update it, and, in the home market, PHEVs from other brands hit the sweet spot of price, tax benefits, resale value and range.
Furthermore, Jaguar didn't actually make the iPace, it was outsourced to Magna Steyr in Austria.
There is also a demographic problem. The customer base is elderly. They want their brrm brrm noises from lots of cylinders in a V configuration. Selling cars to them would not be a problem, however, there are penalties for manufacturers that can't achieve low emissions across the fleet. Had there been lots of EV sales then this would have worked out. But it didn't, making their sports cars and big luxury sedans economically unviable.
The likes of Ferrari, McLaren, Aston Martin and others that only sell a small amount of cars get exemptions, but Jaguar was a different business model to that, with an expectation to sell hundreds of thousands of cars a year, ideally, so no exemption possible.
They also had a problem sourcing engines from the Ford plant in Bridgend, South Wales. Due to Brexit and other factors, Ford quit manufacturing in the UK, so that plant closed in 2020.
So they have had to cut free from their customer base to start over with something new for a new type of customer. They have pivoted. The plan now is to make EVs in the UK and to chase just the luxury market with a lower expectation of sales volume.
Pretty proud of their first pitch - it was a brave move. Looking forward to seeing how they get on.
Ok so we're big national brand, so if we fail to take enough cyber security precautions, the gov will bail us out.
Typical democratic genius.
What does that even mean?
From the comments below. Regardless of Cyber Attack which claims to have its manufacturing shut down, they weren't producing much anyway.
And they got 1.5B loan out of it. With the current UK political and economic climates.
https://media.jaguarlandrover.com/news/2024/04/jlr-full-year...
The "bailout" says more about Tata's approach to supplier relations than it does about brand risk. Not that Tata is much different than any other abusive conglomerate.
This is akin to being "forced" to do the right thing by the UK government. Do we really believe that Tata Group couldn't afford this?
LET THEM FAIL.
Adam Smith rolling over in his grave.
> Adrian Mardell, received approximately $4.5 million for the year ending March 2024.
Oh look I found some expenses to cut.
This excuse that they were attacked by an external player and then the government (i.e. the unwilling taxpayers of the UK) coming in to save them from their own ubris, just looks too much like a scam.
JLs cars were becoming more and more difficult to insure because of high theft rates and poor manufacturer deterrents. 10k car insurance quotes were not unheard of in London.
It caused a massive sale event and the second hand market spiked causing massive devaluation, at one point JL were even offering their own car insurance.
They had incredibly fractured internal systems, multiple owners who refused to invest for the long term and then Tata - who outsourced it all to teams who aren't doing anything with any urgency.
Ticking bomb waiting to happen.
spacebanana7•4mo ago
Saying that JLR should’ve had better cybersecurity misses the point of being attacked by a hostile state. If a cruise missile were used it’d be silly to say JLR should’ve had underground factories or other protective measures.
B1FF_PSUVM•4mo ago
Sort of. JLR is owned by Tata Group.
linksnapzz•4mo ago
(Unfortunately, so is the outsourced IT contract...)
The jobs, and the factories, are still in the West Midlands where they've always been.
toomuchtodo•4mo ago
China has many faults, but they do not make these mistakes more capitalistic and profit driven countries like the UK and the US do (“financialization until failure”).
bodge5000•4mo ago
As the phrase goes (something like): "privatise the profits, publicize the losses"
chii•4mo ago
linksnapzz•4mo ago
JLR mgmt could've decided to outsource to Tata IT had they not been sister divisions of the same holding company, but arguments against doing so would've been easier to make.
Really, "operating a vehicle factory, and associated software and logistics systems" strikes me as a core competency of "being an automaker", and not one that should be handed off to separate entity not quite as committed to the enterprise.
jalapenos•4mo ago
hulitu•4mo ago
JLR is Tata. So by hostile state you mean US ? /s
Who needs cybersecurity ? /s