Five reasons why Jaguar's EV moonshot will fly

Do car buyers care if Jaguar lives or dies?

That’s the brutal truth behind the brand’s unprecedented gamble: to cease selling its current midmarket car range to Britons soon then wait a year before commercialising the first of three luxury electric cars.

The average price will double to more than ￡100,000, and the engine choice will dwindle from hybrid and combustion options to electric-only. Today Jaguar only has a handful of customers who buy at that price point. Doomed to failure? Here are five reasons why I think it will work: bold design, an open market, learning from the past, engineering pedigree and luxury market experience.? ?

Bold design: Jaguar vows the new cars –?starting with a four-door GT being previewed as a concept car this December –?will be a copy of nothing, a saying of Jaguar’s engineering founder Sir William Lyons. Expect a big, imposing GT with a long bonnet mirroring the E-type’s, flowing into a sleek body hugging the ground: powerful proportions that will look fresh among today’s EVs. Luxury yachts and furniture have inspired the interior. It’s the 'exuberant' work of creative director Gerry McGovern, whose vision helped usher Range Rover onto a luxury footing.

Open market: In 2026 the luxury electric competition won’t be too well-established, aside from Porsche’s excellent but understated models. Bentley has delayed its first EV to 2026, Aston Martin is keeping very quiet and Chinese exports of Lotus EVs are being hammered by tariffs. Jaguar’s Solihull-built EVs won’t face that problem.

Past learnings: The GT won’t be Jaguar’s first EV –?the 2018 I-Pace beat its German premium rivals to market, drove beautifully and its cab-forward design looked like a copy of nothing. But it flopped in the emerging EV market: not as cheap as Tesla’s Model 3 with its superior range, unable to transcend the brand’s ‘old man’ image and, reckons Jaguar managing director Rawdon Glover , without holistic public charging support. Jag won’t make the same mistake this time: the GT will have aggregated charging access including to Tesla chargers.

Jaguar won’t be trying to persuade customers to replace a BMW or Tesla owner as the household’s main car. ‘Nobody needs the new Jaguar: you’ll either want one or you won’t,’ says Glover. Note want, not need –?the affluent target customers will own three or four cars, so it's all about making them desire the product and the brand experience.

Impressive engineering should underpin the GT. First there’s the I-Pace know-how, plus a factory team honing its victorious electric tech in Formula E racing. ‘It’s a true race to road story and powertrain is our secret sauce’ says Santino Pietrosanti , Jagaur UK’s director. For example the inverter –?which converts the battery’s direct current to alternating current for the electric motors and back again from regenerative braking – is critical to boost range and deliver high performance. The race-bred inverter is helping make the GT the most powerful Jag ever and deliver a 430-mile range.

Mastering luxury: The Reimagine Jaguar plan is brave. Or foolhardy? But JLR has form here: the reborn Defender doubled its price and tripled its volumes. And in the past 20 years, Range Rover has deepened its customer bond with exquisite hospitality and experiences to the point where it can command $370,000 for strictly limited SV editions. That’s the Gerry McGovern brand experience and Jaguar will get its own version.

It’s a plan that’s kill or cure. But there’s nothing to lose: Jaguar as a volume premium brand is already dead.

Tracey Tompsett Ken McConomy Chas Hallett Ben Kilbey Steve Fowler Ben Miller Paul Barker Ray Massey