Jaguar and Land Rover are currently working on a number of new or refreshed models, including the new Jag XF and XJ, as well as the facelifted Discovery. On the surface, everything seems to be moving fine but, apparently, there could be financial issues within the automaker which could force it to rethink its strategy.
The British manufacturer will make а market analysis and will try to determine whether global sales will recover quickly from the coronavirus outbreak. If the indications are not good, however, it’ll decide whether to possibly cut existing models.
JLR is in trouble:
"In the case of JLR, we need to wait for a few more weeks to understand this better," PB Balaji, chief financial officer at Tata Motors, owner of JLR, said during a call with investors on June 15, answering the call's host, Robin Zhou of Bernstein Research. "We don’t want to react to newspaper headlines to decide long-term strategy [because] the decision will impact us three to four years from now."
It turns out some development programmes for new or refreshed models have already been delayed as a result of the global auto industry crisis. Nothing has been canceled or significantly changed though.
Gallery: 2020 Jaguar XE: Review
“We will come back later in the year once we have figured out the speed of liquidity build and affordability and what that means for those programs on pause,” JLR CFO Adrian Mardell said during a separate call.
A report from Automotive News even claims the future of the Jaguar brand is currently under review in a project that will be overseen by the company’s head of marketing, Felix Braeutigam.
“It’s not an easy task. It is a very renowned brand, yet in some markets it’s not as strong as it ought to be. The team is focusing squarely on what is the brand positioning of Jaguar and how we are going to make it sharper. And how we ensure the portfolio we have is in sync with that position,” Balaji commented.
Source: Automotive News