New electric car 'make or break for Jaguar'

Jaguar's new electric car represents "make or break" for the brand, an industry expert has said.

Parent company JLR has invested billions reinventing Jaguar and has faced mixed reactions over the design of the Type 01, which was unveiled this week.

Last month, it emerged Jaguar Land Rover, which has manufacturing sites in Solihull, Wolverhampton and Halewood on Merseyside, is to cut 4,000 jobs as it struggles with Chinese competition, US tariffs and the transition to electric.

David Bailey, professor of business economics at the University of Birmingham, said it was a "perfect storm" for the firm, which has struggled since a cyber attack last year.

"I think it's make or break for Jaguar as a brand," he said of the Type 01 launch.

"Clearly it was failing to compete in the premium market, they've had to completely reinvent it, take it luxury and electric and that is a big gamble."

Bailey said the market for luxury electric cars was in its infancy, but that "Jaguar is right at the forefront of that".

He added: "It's going to have to create a whole new market where one didn't exist before, so it's a big, big gamble for the company."

Last month, Bentley unveiled its first fully electric car, the Torcal, after investing £350m to upgrade its factory in Crewe.

At the time, the government hailed the news, adding that it followed multimillion-pound investments by McLaren and Nissan in the UK car industry.

The minimum cost of Jaguar's Type 01 is £130,000 in the UK and $130,500 in the US.

The new model's electric motors produce about 1,000 horsepower, allowing it to accelerate from 0-62mph in 3.2 seconds.

JLR, which has its global headquarters at Whitley in Coventry, says it has a range, at "sustained highway speed", of up to 320 miles.

The car was designed and built in the West Midlands and transferred to Manhattan for the launch.

The vehicles will be assembled at Lode Lane in Solihull, while their battery packs are being made at the Wolverhampton plant.

The cyber-attack caused JLR, which employs 43,000 people globally, to shut down production for more than a month.

Bailey said the firm was facing tariffs from the US and "huge pressure to go electric".

"So the company itself is struggling, [has] announced 4,000 redundancies, so there's a lot riding on this car in terms of jobs and investment."

Jaguar's pivot to become an all-electric brand is seen by many in the industry as a high-risk decision.

Speaking last month, Kevin Moreley, a former managing director of the Rover Group, said the Type 01 would be a pivotal moment for the firm.

He said the 4,000 job losses would not be the end of the cuts if the car "doesn't sell the numbers they hope".

While JLR does not break down its accounts by brand, Jaguar is widely believed to be the worst performer in the group.

West Midlands mayor Richard Parker, meanwhile, has suggested the race to electric could be happening too quickly for consumers and that it could lead to production shifting elsewhere.

He has has called for the government's electric vehicle targets to be slashed to protect the sector.

The Type 01's looks have had a mixed response, but West Midlands members of the Jaguar Enthusiasts Club, which has 11,800 members worldwide, have welcomed the new model.

One of them, Tim Brookes, from Kingswinford, said he thought it would be "fantastic".

"I like that it's typically Jaguar as it's low, long, wide. It looks beautifully made... Although it looks like it's got the Jaguar heritage, everything about it looks fresh and new."

Ian Martin stated: "It's quite a bold statement and I think you have to be bold to compete and take Jaguar into a new market."

Peter Bennett, from Walsall, also a member of the group, said the level of technology in the new car and those that follow it "is way in advance of anything that we've seen".

"But the Chinese are bringing out cars for a lot less money with similar technology, so it's going to be tough, but I just hope that it works out for them."

Trainee car mechanics at City of Wolverhampton College also liked what they saw with the new car.

Student Muhammad Ali Adnan said: "I think I could see this in a James Bond movie in the future.

"[It] is very different from the old ones they made, so I think this is a risk and I think it has a potential to go positive."

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