Jaguar’s next EV will be a dramatic four-door GT car with ‘wow factor’
A stunning new electric Jaguar with ‘wow’ factor will spearhead the renaissance of the luxury sports brand and its off-road siblings as part of a £15 billion investment, bosses said today.
The dramatic four-door GT grand tourer with a range of 700 kilometers will ‘seem like nothing else’ and be the first of three all-electric Jaguars to launch from 2024 with first customer deliveries from 2025, after which it will become an all-electric ‘reborn’ brand .
But it won’t be cheap, with six-figure prices starting at £100,000, and will be sold in dedicated boutique salons and online.
Jaguar’s first new model as part of its transition to an all-electric luxury car brand will be a dramatic £100,000 four-door grand tourer, the British marque said today.
Parent group JLR is investing £1bn to go back to the drawing board and revive Jaguar as a 21st century modern electric brand that will ‘shock’ and make waves.
This part of a £15bn investment – at a rate of £3bn a year over five years – it invests company-wide as the second phase of its ‘reimagination’ strategy.
Announcing the plan as part of a wider revival and transformation of JLR, the Midlands-based company promised: ‘This cat is going to purr.’
The new electric Jaguar will be built at its car plant in Solihull, near Birmingham, as part of a wider shake-up of production and factories.
Parent group JLR is investing £1bn to go back to the drawing board and revive Jaguar as a 21st century modern electric brand that will ‘shock’ and make waves as part of wider £15bn investment over 5 year
Bosses revealed this teaser image for the forthcoming GT electric car, which gives away virtually nothing. It will be one of three new models launched to accelerate the brand’s transition to electric-only models
Prototype models will be tested on public roads later this year, although the vehicles will be heavily camouflaged so as not to reveal the design.
The comments came during a global briefing held at JLR’s design and engineering headquarters in Gaydon Warwickshire, which the company said stood proudly in the heart of ‘central England’ but was exported to the world.
It comes after a rough patch for the posh British automaker owned by India’s giant industrial conglomerate Tata.
The bosses apologized for a long period of silence on the matter, but said they had worked quietly but busy behind the scenes and now had something concrete to cheer about.
It also follows the surprise departure last November of former CEO Thierry Bollore after just two years in the top position.
JLR’s new CEO is Adrian Mardell, who today announced having worked for the British carmaker for 32 years, five months and 14 days, said: ‘This is also about Jaguar’s renaissance. It’s personal. It’s an unfinished business.
Jaguar is being reborn. Our focus is now on delivery and implementation.’
The move to “pause” Jaguar for the past two years in an attempt to reinvent it was a brave – but necessary – move, he said.
Announcing the plan for a dramatic battery-powered GT cruiser as part of a wider JLR revival and transformation, the Midlands-based company promised: ‘This cat is going to purr’
Professor Gerry McGovern, Jaguar Land Rover’s head of design, said of his new electric car: ‘You’ll blow your eyes out when you see it.
“The design brief was to create a car that will blow your mind and make people say ‘wow’.”
And three cars chosen to lead Jaguar’s renaissance have been whittled down to a total of 18 physical prototypes created by six rival design teams in an internal competition with shades of the BBC’s hit show, The intern.
Professor Jerry McGovern, JLR’s design chief
But in the end, McGovern admitted, “We knew right away which the three were — and it was unanimous.”
He said the futuristic and modernist Jaguars would ‘shock’, but spiritually harks back to the kind of reaction that arose when the legendary Jaguar E-Type was launched in the 1960s and the XJS saloon in the 1970s.
“The new Jaguar will be fearless and progressive, exuberant, modern and unique. We should be proud of his British character,” McGovern added.
He said Jaguar founder Sir William Lyons had once said that Jaguars in their uniqueness should be ‘a copy of nothing’, and that this had been his guiding principle.
“When the E-Type was first seen, it looked like it had fallen from space,” McGovern continued.
“The XJs caused quite a stir when it was launched. We will do the same with our new Jaguars.
“Believe me, this brand will inspire like no other,” he concluded.
Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on it, we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money and use it for free. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to compromise our editorial independence.