According to Glover, the resultant car – which will begin British road tests under camouflage in the coming weeks and months – is a repudiation of the largely homogenous designs prevalent among most electric vehicles (EVs) today.
He remains tight-lipped on the details but says the car will have a long bonnet and an interior “akin to luxury furniture” with “the feel of a boat”. Computer screens will have only a minimal presence.
“A lot of EVs at the moment are a little bit derivative, they’re very much cab-forward and it’s all about aerodynamics, so they all look pretty similar in terms of their format,” Glover explains.
“Our vehicles are really all about exuberant proportions. They’re all about having really, really impactful designs that are going to stand out from the rest of the vehicles on the road.”
This radical shift has not just come from a yearning desire to go back to making avant-garde cars. The transition to electric vehicles is putting pressure on the company to charge higher prices. For that, they need a special product.
Jaguar produced about 67,000 cars in the year to the end of March and is thought to be investing around £2bn in the reinvention of the brand, out of a total of £15bn being spent on the electrification of the wider JLR portfolio.
Based on those numbers, and the higher cost today of producing EVs compared to combustion engine cars, the company will need to sell at a higher price point just to make its sums add up, one automotive analyst points out.
Compared to the current top end of its range, particularly after recent levels of inflation, £100,000 won’t be too much of a leap for Jaguar’s existing customers. But “to get people to that emotional £100,000 price point, you need a bit of a halo”, the analyst adds.
“Mercedes has the EQS [saloon] and [performance brand] AMG – you need that sort of GT range that goes up to £200,000.
“There has to be a feeling that the customer can work their way up and they are part of an exclusive club”.
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