I had a lot of questions for Rawdon Glover, the managing director at Jaguar. I wanted to ask him how the storied British marque was handling a controversial brand reboot, the departures of its longtime design talent, and its pivot to producing solely premium electric vehicles at a time when demand for that sort of thing feels far more uncertain than it did a year ago.
But we couldn’t get the video conference call to work right.
After 10 minutes of waiting on two different links before finally connecting to Glover on a third, his first words were at once apologetic and pertinent. “Our network seems to be in a holding pattern. And you need to be invited in,” he said, grinning, or gritting his teeth.
Jaguar Type 00 In French Ultramarine Blue
Photo by: Jaguar
All of it felt emblematic of the struggles the Jaguar has dealt with this past year, particularly the crippling cyberattacks that recently shut down its operations for six weeks.
Since Jag closed its last unsuccessful chapter—attempting to emulate the masspirational German full-line automakers, in variety of models, volume, and anodyne styling—and performed a hard reboot, the 90-year-old marque has not really been able to catch a break.
Its new automotive design sensibility, as epitomized in the Type 00 concept car it unveiled in Miami a year ago, is blunt and brutal, and appears unfinished, resembling a computer-generated rendering, even in real life. Its new corporate identity, bathed in pink and featuring a broad range of humanity, drew the trigger-happy ire of the global reactionary right-wing. Then there was the cyberattack.
Jaguar Type 00 x Yoshirotten Photo by: Jaguar
And then its head of design, Gerry McGovern, a man I knew to be irascible and egotistical, went MIA. Perhaps fired, although the company denies this. Someone with inside knowledge of the situation told me, half-joking, “We don’t know where he is. But he’s not here.”
But it is Jaguar’s ongoing plan to relaunch as a fully electric luxury brand that seems to be drawing the most queries from pundits and investors.
Jaguar Type 00 x Yoshirotten
Photo by: Jaguar
This is mainly in light of the allegedly capricious global EV market, which has been intentionally sabotaged by America’s current federal government and its supporters in the traditional auto industry, as well as by recent European backpedaling on a planned end for internal combustion in the coming decade. This, despite continued stellar growth throughout the 2020s, increasing precipitously from around 4% of new car sales in 2020 to 20% last year, to around 25% this year, according to the International Energy Agency.
Glover is not intimidated by current posturing. When I asked him if he wished he had a contingency plan for continuing ICE or hybrid production in future Jaguar vehicles, he shrugged it off. “I’d almost turn that question around in a different way and say, ‘Would you want a business strategy that was reliant on governments banning an alternative for you? Or would you rather people buy your vehicle because it’s a choice they’re actually making?’”
Instead of capitulation, he, rather admirably, takes the long view.
Jaguar Type 00 In French Ultramarine Blue Photo by: Jaguar
“The question should be, ‘What do you think is going be happening in 2032? You still think—whether it’s in the US environment, the political environment, this politicization of EVs, the public charging infrastructure—do you think things will evolve from where they are?” he asked, leadingly. “I suspect the situation would be markedly different from where we are today. And when we’re thinking about a new vehicle architecture, we have to think about that length of time. Because this vehicle will go on sale in 2027, and then it’s going to be on sale for eight years. That’s the lifecycle. So we can’t condition ourselves in terms of today’s thinking.”
This is a bold statement for a contemporary C-suite auto executive. These days, most of them are happy to hide behind vague, focus-group-friendly messaging like “customer choice” as they breathe a sigh of relief and pivot back to gas. But despite my appreciation for Glover’s candor, it is also clear that Jaguar doesn’t have another choice. It’s gone all-in on its big electric Hail Mary, with billions invested, and can’t realistically shift course. “I mean, one can do anything,” Glover said, chuckling, when I brought this up. “It’s just a question of time and cost. And whether you think that would be worth it.”
Jaguar’s canceled XJ project.
Photo by: InsideEVs
These days, Jaguar doesn’t have much else to fall back on. In the 2010s, it launched an array of performance-luxury sedans, crossovers and sports cars designed to compete on volume with the likes of BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Impressive as they were, this effort fell flat, and the actual moneymaking within Jaguar Land Rover came to rest on the latter brand. Along the way, Jaguar spent over $600 million on a new electric XJ, then canceled it entirely right at the goal line.
So now, after years of decline, false starts and executive departures, it rolled the dice in a big way: cancel all the existing cars and pivot to more premium EVs. Going back—the way many automakers are now keeping gas engines around longer—is no longer an option. Arguably, neither is failure.
As it approaches its centennial, this may be Jag’s last chance.
Jaguar Type 00 In French Ultramarine Blue Photo by: Jaguar
The first car the leaping cat brand will launch off its new, battery-electric platform is a halo vehicle, and one that is decidedly not in the meat of the current SUV-dominated market. Code-named X900, it is a sporting, long-nosed, battery-powered, four-door grand touring sedan with 1,000 hp, 400 miles of range, a balance of insulation and precision, and a starting price of around $120,000.
Glover seemed intent on turning any loose lemons into lemonade. “At this point where we are, I absolutely want to just accentuate these are all the advantages,” he said. And he seems unperturbed by negative chatter. “This is not a mass-market car. It doesn’t have to appeal to everyone. At the price point that we’re going to operate in, you’re making that choice because you want it, not because you need it. So I think the challenge for Jaguar is exactly the same challenge that it was twelve months ago, which is, how do we just make this the most desirable vehicle?”
Jaguar Type 00 Prototype Testing
Photo by: Jaguar
His answer is at once simple, and monumental: to differentiate the X900 from what has come before, from Jag and from its competitors, in the luxury EV space. “Many of the electric cars we’ve seen have been very homogenous, quite cookie-cutter. They’re all cab-forward, they’ve got no drama, they’re all high riding, they maximize the interior package, amd therefore, they have certain proportions. But that’s not a recipe for a car that stirs the blood. That’s not a car that you and I would look at and go, ‘Wow, I must have that vehicle.’ And that’s what we’re striving for,” he said. “We think we’ll create that desire by making the exterior beautiful, by making the interior like no other car that’s on the market, and by making it feel proper, luxurious, and distinctive.”
Despite all the negative buzz surrounding electric vehicles, Glover claims that the public is largely powertrain agnostic. “I was looking at a McKinsey report recently that analyzed the drivers for vehicle purchase and how they differ across markets,” he says. “It’s pretty simple.”
Jaguar Type 00 Prototype Testing
Photo by: Jaguar
According to the stats, he said, 50% to 60%of the decision comes down to exterior appearance—if it makes the owner feel desire and affection for the car, and reflects the same emotions onto them when they exit. Next is how the interior looks and feels, with an emphasis on the provision of calm and a sense of sanctuary. One has to scroll down toward the bottom to find those that say, ‘I buy a car because of its powertrain.’ “It’s like 15%,” Glover said. So, forthcoming Jaguars must exceed expectations on the key drivers of purchase. The rest just must work in service of those. “Electrification,” he said, “is actually just an enabler for all of that.”
Glover noted that the design of this forthcoming sedan is completely locked. He said that 150 prototypes have been built and are currently undergoing validation and durability testing, including in extreme climates. He also stated that Jaguar is on track to meet its current timeline of beginning to take deposits on the production car next summer, and to make first deliveries at the end of 2027. But he added a series of important caveats.
Jaguar Type 00 Prototype Testing Photo by: Jaguar
“We will launch the car when it’s ready—when we’re confident in the quality, when we know it’s going to deliver on all its attributes and all of the thresholds that we need to meet. So it’ll come when it’s ready, and not a day earlier and not a day later,” he said.
Might this mean continuing to kick the electric can down the road, as many luxury manufacturers have in the past year, backing away from their commitments to transform to full battery power, in the hope that the world changes first? My impression is that Glover and Jaguar are hoping not only to push ahead, but to be seen as leaders in this respect.
Gallery: Jaguar Type 00 Prototype Testing
“What I don’t want to do is sit and wait for the market. Because we’ve already said, to a certain extent, we’re trying to make the market,” he said, emphatically. “Lots of things are happening environmentally, politically, and everything else around us. But when we stand back from it, we still want to make this, first and foremost, a Jaguar that’s got to create an emotional reaction with people.”
I think Jag has definitely cued such a visceral response. But is it the type that pushes potential customers toward purchasing a car? That remains to be seen.
Brett Berk is a freelance automotive writer based in New York. He has driven and reviewed thousands of cars for Car and Driver and Road & Track, where he is a contributing editor. He has also written for Architectural Digest, Billboard, ELLE Decor, Esquire, GQ, Travel + Leisure and Vanity Fair.
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