Jaguar is “not in the volume race,” Jaguar Land Rover CEO Ralf Speth cautioned on Monday, as the company prepared to unveil the new Jaguar XE, its new compact luxury car, its most significant launch since the best-selling Range Rover Evoque.
The car will first be released in Europe early next year, followed by the US, China and India and other emerging markets.
“The XE will be for the global market,” said Speth.
“We are a small company…we will only really sell a decent number of cars,” he said at a briefing in London ahead of the unveiling of the car on Monday evening.
JLR has not made its sales projections public, though IHS Global Insight predicts that sales could reach 60,000 a year at its peak, following the initial launch year. (Jaguar sold 76,668 vehicles in 2013, while Land Rover sold 348,338.)
Right attributes JLR has not had a car in the compact luxury car segment since it ended production of the relatively unsuccessful X-Type, launched in 2001 under Ford.
Acknowledging that the X-Type did not have all the “right attributes” at the time, Speth said that the company had learnt and also adopted its lessons.
“We started from scratch and listened to our customers,” he said.
“This meant we also could, uncompromised, develop a totally new car on a totally new modular architecture, which we developed from scratch.”
Biggest segment “The XE is positioned in the most interesting and biggest segment of the premium car industry,” added Speth. IHS Global Insight forecasts that this segment will grow by 18 per cent up until 2020.
“You can see that there is enough space in this segment for everybody,” he said.
He added that there was little doubt that the new car, with its lower price point, would outsell other Jaguar models.
Lightweight Last week the company unveiled technical details of the car, which include a lightweight 75 per cent aluminium chassis.
It will also be the first car to use JLR’s new low-emission, four cylinder petrol and diesel “Ingenium” engine.
While the engines are being produced at the company’s new engine manufacturing facility at Wolverhampton, the XEs are to be produced at a new plant in Solihull, near Birmingham.
Further models building on the new chassis and technology going into the XE are set to be released over the next five years. The car – pricing of which is set to be unveiled at the Paris Auto Show in October – was “unbelievably important” to Jaguar, showing its ability to expand its product portfolio and cover more segments, helping it attract younger customers, and women to the brand.
“It has a very special combination of drivability, design and steering,” while at the same time being a “powerful sporty car,” said Speth.
“It will also be a cost conscious car,” he said pointing to its low fuel consumption and emissions.
On track In the quarter to June, JLR reported a pre-tax profit of 924 million pounds, while Speth said they remained on track in terms of volume in the current quarter “August was a solid month and we have very good indications that August is going to be a solid month…We are cautiously optimistic that this year will become a solid year for JLR.”