Earnestly, Jaguar is not my favourite brand and sadly, I never actually managed to establish an emotional bond with the brand. Despite their products offering solid and attractive designs and a unique personality, the product range was never sustainable in terms of design and performance, with the German brands. For example when considering the realm of semi-autonomous driving, driving assistance systems, luxury and also reliability; Jaguar is more of an emotional car brand rather than a high-tech luxury car brand.
I have a real love for the XJ as it possessed something unique compared with the rest of the Jaguar fleet. It is big, agile, sporty and particularly when considering the newest XJ, quite different from the other designs in the range because it is ultimately a very youthful looking vehicle. Unfortunately, however, it never managed to keep up with the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, BMW 7-Series or Audi A8, all of which encompassed state-of-the-art technology on wheels.
Interestingly all these cars have one thing in common, none of them is purely electric! Jaguar recently announced the next generation XJ will be entirely electric, akin to the Tesla Model S. Notably, this statement came from a company that is experiencing finance challenges and uncertainty and therefore doesn’t have the budget of Daimler AG’s research and development remit. Notwithstanding, it is however planning to directly target the Tesla Model S. In addition, the Tesla Model S is at the lower segment of the XJ and therefore the Model S has never been a real competitor of the S-Class, 7-Series, A8 or the XJ. Now the next generation Jaguar XJ is changing the rules and extending its platform.
I am really excited to learn more about the new XJ and there is solid proof that, JLR is still ready to compete with the big German brands and furthermore, for the first time, they are going to take a huge risk and offer a vehicle that does not have a direct substitute from a German rival.
I am looking forward to learning more details about the XJ and am keen to see how the German brands will respond to this.
Ps. Mercedes-Benz is going to introduce a brand-new S-Class next year.
Photo Credits // Cars Magazine and Motor 1