I couldn't find this topic covered anywhere and it's old news by now but I'm just learning about it after reminiscing over what could've been with the Sony EV. This thread's quick death was an omen, clearly. The near-complete
Jaguar XJ EV officially died back in February.
What we thought was an annoying but inevitable, forward-thinking, and entirely relevant plan to beat Mercedes, BMW, and Audi to the full-size EV sedan market - and all the news the past few years of Jaguar going full-EV for every model - has been scrapped. Apparently Jaguar is giving up on the middle-luxury market altogether, actually.
They're going to reinvent themselves as a super-premium performance luxury brand like Porsche and Bentley.
Pretty wild turn of events in my opinion. It makes sense though, as Jag's sales has faltered, but super-premium brands with low volume and high prices do seem to feed off massive profit margins and are apparently immune to global financial crises. We all have our own opinions on increasing income and wealth disparities across the globe but the evidence is clear: Brands like Porsche, Bentley, Lambo, Ferrari, Mclaren, et al, are all booming and expanding their product lines in
both directions. In many cases they're actually financing new volume products with extremely limited-production special editions, the sale of just a few being enough to finance an entire car's development.
But apparently Jag is going to do this with EVs. Interesting choice since Bentley and Rolls-Royce in particular don't seem to have any immediate EV plans ready to roll, unlike Porsche which has already produced two good ones, in fact the best EVs on the market besides Tesla. But while an opportunity exists, seizing it apparently means scrapping tens of millions of dollars worth of ground-up EV development which seems like more than just a punch in the gut. Perhaps what
was going to be an XJ will actually be rebranded as the more affordable option, while a
real XJ EV will be pushed toward Bentley Continental territory?
