Jaguar's £130,000 Type 01 Is 'Make or Break' for the Brand

Jaguar's new electric Type 01 starts at £130,000 in the UK and $130,500 in the US — and one of Britain's leading industry analysts calls the launch "make or break" for the 43,000-employee carmaker's premium marque.

Parent company JLR has invested billions reinventing Jaguar, and the model unveiled this week represents the payoff of that gamble. David Bailey, professor of business economics at the University of Birmingham, said the firm faces a "perfect storm" after a cyber attack last year shut down production for more than a month.

"I think it's make or break for Jaguar as a brand," Bailey said of the Type 01 launch. "Clearly it was failing to compete in the premium market, they've had to completely reinvent it, take it luxury and electric and that is a big gamble."

What does the Type 01 deliver?

The numbers are unambiguous. The car's electric motors produce about 1,000 horsepower, accelerating from 0-62mph in 3.2 seconds. JLR, headquartered at Whitley in Coventry, claims a range of up to 320 miles at "sustained highway speed."

The vehicle was designed and built in the West Midlands before being transferred to Manhattan for its launch. Assembly will take place at Lode Lane in Solihull, with battery packs manufactured at the Wolverhampton plant. JLR also operates a site in Halewood on Merseyside.

Why is the stakes so high?

The launch lands amid a brutal stretch for JLR. Last month the company, which employs 43,000 people globally, announced it will cut 4,000 jobs as it struggles with Chinese competition, US tariffs and the transition to electric vehicles.

"So the company itself is struggling, [has] announced 4,000 redundancies, so there's a lot riding on this car in terms of jobs and investment," Bailey said.

He added that the luxury electric market remains in its infancy, though "Jaguar is right at the forefront of that." His assessment of the commercial challenge is blunt: "It's going to have to create a whole new market where one didn't exist before, so it's a big, big gamble for the company."

While JLR does not break down its accounts by brand, Jaguar is widely believed to be the worst performer in the group. Kevin Moreley, a former managing director of the Rover Group, said last month that the Type 01 would be a pivotal moment for the firm — and that the 4,000 job losses would not be the end of the cuts if the car "doesn't sell the numbers they hope."

Who else is racing to electric?

Jaguar is not alone in pushing electric luxury. Last month Bentley unveiled its first fully electric car, the Torcal, after investing £350m to upgrade its factory in Crewe. The government welcomed that news and pointed to multimillion-pound investments by McLaren and Nissan in the UK car industry.

Not everyone in the West Midlands believes the pace is right. Mayor Richard Parker has suggested the race to electric could be happening too quickly for consumers and could push production elsewhere. He has called for the government's electric vehicle targets to be slashed to protect the sector.

How has the car been received?

The Type 01's polarising design has drawn mixed reactions, but members of the Jaguar Enthusiasts Club — 11,800 strong worldwide — have embraced it. Tim Brookes, from Kingswinford, said he thought it would be "fantastic": "I like that it's typically Jaguar as it's low, long, wide. It looks beautifully made... Although it looks like it's got the Jaguar heritage, everything about it looks fresh and new."

Fellow member Ian Martin said: "It's quite a bold statement and I think you have to be bold to compete and take Jaguar into a new market."

Peter Bennett, from Walsall, flagged the competitive threat. He said the car's technology "is way in advance of anything that we've seen," but cautioned: "But the Chinese are bringing out cars for a lot less money with similar technology, so it's going to be tough, but I just hope that it works out for them."

Trainee mechanics at City of Wolverhampton College also approved. Student Muhammad Ali Adnan said: "I think I could see this in a James Bond movie in the future. [It] is very different from the old ones they made, so I think this is a risk and I think it has a potential to go positive."

If the Type 01 misses its sales targets, Moreley's warning about further cuts suggests the 4,000 redundancies announced last month could mark the beginning rather than the end of JLR's restructuring.