Jaguar CEO Talks All-Electric Sports Cars

Speaking to Top Gear, Jaguar Land Rover CEO Thierry Bollore didn't outright confirm when asked if an electrified sports car is planned. "It's a question that we are looking at very carefully," he said. "I'm not going to answer that right now because it's a question of importance for us, and we will answer when we have decided exactly what we want to do with this new portfolio of Jaguar."

Bear in mind one critical thing: Jag's upcoming EVs will all share a single platform. Future all-electric Land Rovers will have two at their disposal. Bollore did acknowledge Jaguar's new lineup "is going to be more compact compared to the one we have today."

Regardless of whether or not an electrified sports car is in the future mix, Bollore made something else very clear. He intends to let the Jaguar design team be "totally free to prepare and propose the most emotionally dramatic designs they can imagine."




So the question is " Is the F type the end of sports cars for Jaguar?"

 

For the immediate future, probably. Jag sales are slumping and all people seem to want these days are crossovers. Why would they divert resources towards producing a car that 10 people are going to buy a year?

Assuming Jaguar survives the EV transition, it's pretty reasonable to assume they expand their EV development to include something with sporting pretensions. I would think that's probably at least 5-10 years out though.

 

Sports cars are in Jaguar's DNA, but given how long it took for the F-Type to see the light of day, don't hold your breath ....

I'm not sure if the new CEO understands DNA, though.

 

I don't really get this. Are we suggesting a sports car isn't a sports car if it is an EV?

"A sports car is a car designed with an emphasis on dynamic performance, such as handling, acceleration, top speed, or thrill of driving"

I am confused like this is a trick question, but the obvious answer is no.

Do you mean the last ICE sports car? Because that's a yes.

 

You certainly can make an EV with performance and sportiness in mind. It just won't be light and nimble. (Such as it was, think back to the original Tesla.)
But, in a SUV world, you can get plenty of straight line performance, plus practicality, together. The question becomes how much styling and distinction you can get with a sports car platform to drive sales and cover the development expense of a unique platform.
The F-Type hasn't had the volume to directly be a huge financial contribution to JLR, but it DID provide a show piece - a needed draw to the brand. We can only hope JLR sees a need to maintain that in the future portfolio.
Personally, I'm afraid we're headed back to the abyss. There's plenty of sports car DNA in the company, but the financial realities may be insurmountable.

 

...or Jag might be able to leverage their experience with electric and government support to make a good run at what is in practical terms (like it or not) the only market with a certain future.

sooner or later though they will need a halo model.

 

I think this would be better asked as "Could the F-Type be the last GT for Jaguar?"

Seriously. I refer to my F-Type as a sports car, but only because I don't want to explain to the non-car folks the difference between a sports car and a GT. It's might be considered at the sports end of GT or at the GT end of Sports, but it's not pure Sports: Too much luxury (and the weight that goes with it).

 

It's doubtful the F-Type will be the last, even in a one platform model.

The F-Type is basically a shrunken XK platform, right? Look to all that GM build off one platform, well over a decade ago. The Camaro is on the same platform as the CTS. Obviously, the Camaro isn't a full sports car, but the idea is there. If you can shorten a platform, which Jaguar has done before, then you have more options. There is also a GIANT HOLE in the electrified sports car market right now. Jaguar could position themselves to be at the front of companies competing to fill that market.

Regardless, I'm quite happy with my anachronism of a car.

 

...which describes my eating habits perfectly!

Hey Steve and OP Zach—hope you both are well. While it borders on semantics, I’ve never considered the F-Type to be a sports car and lizzardo is quite right to describe it, best, as a GT.

I’m never selling mine, that’s for sure.

 

Honing in on it as a final GT is a fascinating conversation, cuz then we get to decide to argue ad nauseam about what a GT means lol I'm joking I get it. This is a good thought. Not mine. Lizzardo

 

My X100 XKR was a GT.
The F type is a GT-Sports Car crossover perhaps?
My E type Coupé was definitely a sports car back then but perhaps considered a GT these days.

 

That CEO represents brain rot that permeates modern society. This is nothing but another manifestation of puritanism - the idiotic idea that you can't have nice things because they are wasteful. Only now instead of Jesus it is the environment.

Yes, having a sports car is wasteful. So is having a latte. We are not machines to be optimized, it is OK to have wasteful things in moderation.

 

This is probably a topic for a separate thread.
Why push electric with all its overhead, batteries, infrastructure etc when natural gas is a seemingly easier. ICEs are easily adapted. The exhaust is as clean as your kitchen stove. The infrastructure is already there. Lots of us already have it piped to our house. It has the BTUs. We have LOTS of it. Why not?

 

One simple answer - green/left politics.

 

About 20 years ago I owned a Pickup that I had converted to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). The government of the day was pushing it as an eco friendly option and picked up 90% of the conversion cost.. As a pickup I was able to install 3 tanks. One in the bed and two underneath. Energy density was not as good as fuel about 80%. I used to drive about 170 miles per day to and from the office. The issues were that there were few stations that sold CNG, luckily there was one 2 blocks from the office. I had enough onboard to go about 140 miles then had to flip a switch and change to fuel. It took around 30 - 40 minutes to fuel up to go 140 miles.

So CNG is not really an option because lower energy density, very low range, painfully slow to refill. Perhaps LNG would have been a better option, but it would have many obstacles.

 

+1, starting with its explosive nature!

 

The best alternative is to use LPG - liquid petroleum gas - which we use quite a lot of in Oz, especially in our cars.
It's much better than CNG in many ways, it's relatively cheap, and it's a by product of natural gas.
It's main downside is that it has only 80% of the energy density of regular petrol (gasoline) so fuel economy suffers a bit.

 

They are proposing to phase that out in New Zealand:

"The commission has warned that the country needs to move faster to get carbon neutral by 2050, and has set out the actions that need to be taken across transport, manufacturing, farming and other sectors to achieve that goal.

For housing, there would be no new natural gas connections to the network or bottled LPG connections after 2025. Ageing gas heating and hot water systems would have to switch to electricity or biomass when they are replaced.

Existing natural gas supplies in buildings would be phased out by 2050."

 

For over 150 years, "politics" hasn't moved the needle for the markets without regulation, vs the markets moving where they know they need to be.
If it makes our confirmation bias feel more cozy, fine. But businesses at this level aren't cowtowing to politicians vs setting the agenda. ALEC teaches us as much.
The corporations are doing what is in their collective best interests, nothing more, and politics has nothing to do with it.

 

The biggest reason I overpaid for the F-Type is the roaring engine sound of the V-8 engine & its wonderful sounds purring out of the pipes. Imagine the sound of the electric...?
My wife just bought the very last of the gas engine Jaguar XJ, at a great discount. Wouldn't even consider the next gen electric XJ at $100K+

If Jag makes the next F-Type as electric, then there's always the V-8 mid gas engine Vette with the NPP exhaust...