February 15, 2021, marked the beginning of the end for Jaguar models with combustion engines as the British company vowed to go purely electric from 2025. The announcement was made as part of Jaguar Land Rover’s Reimagine strategy, which includes six Land Rover EVs due to arrive from 2024 onwards. While JLR CEO Thierry Bolloré initially considered acquiring the rights to use a platform from a third party, that won’t be the case anymore.
Speaking with investors this week, JLR’s head honcho said the automaker must have an architecture able to combine the design and performance capabilities no other EV can offer right now. For this reason, the new dedicated electric car platform is being engineered in-house to cater to Jaguar perfectly and its zero-emission ambitions from 2025 onwards.
He went on to say giving future Jaguar models a “unique proportion” represents a priority, hence why they’ll be taking matters into their own hands to develop the new architecture. It goes by the name of Panthera and will share some of the hardware with other JLR platforms to drive down costs and speed up development.
Jaguar will be moving upmarket in the EV era by becoming a lower-volume brand with higher-priced luxury vehicles. The only model to survive from the old guard will be the I-Pace, but even that one will be seen as a separate member of the fresh lineup consisting of all-new EVs. The company’s head honcho promised there will be no overlap between cars and that “proportions are crucial” in the grand scheme of things.
Some of the software, battery packs, and electric motors could be shared between Jaguar and Land Rover models to achieve economies of scale. It’s widely believed the overhauled Jaguar brand will go up against elite marques including Bentley, at least as far as pricing is concerned. It remains to be seen whether there will be room for another brand to take on the peeps from Crewe, which have pledged to ditch gasoline engines by 2030.
Source: Autocar
