They have made motorsport history, dominated far and wide at Le Mans and transferred, like few brands in the world, racing technology from the track to the road. We are talking about his majesty Jaguar which, after having just taken home the constructors’ title in Formula E – where it has been racing since October 2016, was the first premium brand to participate in the street races of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship – is now about to launch a revolution that almost feels like a provocation. That is, completely cancelling thermal cars to offer only electric vehicles, ten years ahead of the (theoretical, we’ll see how it ends) limit that the EU is trying to impose for 2035.
A case that deserves to be explored further. And for various reasons. The first, as we were saying, is that Jaguar is not what you would call a “normal” brand. And not only because (but that would be enough…) they are the ones who brought the E-type into the world: in its very particular process of dominating competitions, Jaguar also made history from the point of view of design and technology. The very advanced aerodynamic research on the C-Type and D-Type brought to the fore those rounded shapes that became iconic on the E-Type and were then adopted by all the other competitors, both on the track and on the road.
From a technical point of view, Jaguar was also the first in the world to bring revolutionary disc brakes to the race (at Le Mans). And to innovate profoundly: the D-Type – which won the 24 Hours of 1955, 1956 and 1957 – had a very refined central structure, almost a forerunner of modern composite tubs. At the front there was a tubular structure, intended for the engine, its accessories and the suspension. And this for a specific reason: in 1951, the aeronautical engineer Malcolm Sayer joined Jaguar, bringing with him the military discipline and excellence to which he was accustomed. So in his first collaboration, the C-Type model, won at Le Mans (in the photo, Peter Walker and Peter Whitehead’s car crosses the finish line victorious) and the driver of the second car, a certain Stirling Moss, beat the lap record. In 1953, the C-Type triumphed again at Le Mans, taking three of the first four places. Only poor weather prevented the D-Type from taking victory at Le Mans in 1954, despite its shocking top speed (274 km/h…). The car returned to racing in a stripped-down version, winning in 1955, 1956 and 1957, taking five of the first six places. It is no coincidence that even today, the D-Type is still considered one of the best racing cars ever built.
Then the passion for motorsports returned in 1988 with the XJR-9 when the V12-engined supercar was driven to victory first at the 24 Hours of Daytona and then at Le Mans, where driver Martin Brundle and Jaguar won the Drivers’ Championship and the Constructors’ Championship respectively. Without forgetting Jaguar’s stint in the Formula 1 Championship (with ex-Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine reaching the podium in several races) and then the commitment as we said in Formula E where Jaguar TCS Racing designed its own powertrain in-house, consisting of engine, transmission, inverter and rear suspension.
But why the much-hated electric cars? What do they have to do with it? Let’s go step by step. Formula E remains a priority event for JLR and for the English company’s Reimagine strategy: it is the only championship in the world reserved for battery-powered vehicles, and thus allows the company to test and develop new technologies in a high-performance environment. In short, a test bed for what Jaguar proudly calls the “Race to Innovate mission”, which makes it possible to use the “Race to Road and Road to Race” learnings to shape their electric future.
“Use” with force, in some ways even with violence: last December Jaguar had in fact announced the end of production of the XE, XF, F-Type, I-Pace and E-Pace models during 2024, until the start of the new electric era in 2025. We will see the first fruit of this revolution already in December, in a few months, with the debut of the concept of a fully electric GT, four doors and four seats. According to rumors collected by Autocar, it will be placed in the 100 thousand pound price range, will have a range of over 700 km, ultra-fast charging and around 600 horsepower. The presentation of this new car is scheduled for the United States, considered a strategic market for the future of the brand and, again according to Autocar, with this supercar Jaguar will anticipate the brand’s new design language, which will also characterize a super SUV and a maxi limousine, both expected by 2028.
But there’s more: speaking to Autocar, Jaguar managing director Rawdon Glover said that a priority in designing these new cars was “that of rethinking the basic principles of electric car design” given that today’s EVs “they all look pretty similar because they spent too much time in a wind tunnel” evidently to optimize autonomy. “If we think about it carefully – explained the English manager – It’s a pretty homogenous segment and I suspect that might be one of the reasons why the BEV space has stalled a bit. In fact, what we want to do is make cars that actually challenge some of those conventions.”
Glover is confident that Jaguar’s repositioning of the brand, new technical innovations and new-age design cues will strengthen their appeal in the market: “I think the next generation of products,” he explains, “will make a big difference in the way the entire sector is perceived, given that today range anxiety and the criticality of public charging infrastructure remain the rational barriers to ownership of electric models.”
We’ll see. Of course, don’t wait until 2035, the fateful date set by the EU to switch from thermal engines to electric ones, but arriving on the market ten years earlier, in 2025, with a list made up only of battery-powered cars, raises a question. Why? “In a highly debated industrial political landscape – Marco Santucci, President and Chief Executive Officer of Jaguar Land Rover Italy, explained to us – we make this choice for two reasons, linked to the moment and to the brand strategy. The first is linked to the fact that we must do something, immediately, to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change. And this effort obviously also applies to Land Rover given that our group on the front of CO2 emissions overall will go through a 54% cut in industrial activities and 60% in vehicle emissions. In 2021, when we announced the Reimagine plan with the total conversion of the Jaguar brand to electric by 2025 and the partial conversion of Land Rover, which in any case aims with the same deadline to bring electric to 60% of the sales mix, we had already set 2039 as the date by which we would become “carbon neutral”.
“The second theme of Jaguar – continues Santucci – it is linked to the fact that the brand has evolved over the years; from a crazy brand, if I may use the term, it has gone on to produce cars, still high-end, but more normal. With sedans, station wagons and SUVs it is as if it has lost a bit of that positioning it once had. Today Jaguar wants to return to that, to present itself as an iconic brand, as it has been in the past, projecting itself towards the future. A somewhat pioneering and visionary objective if you like, but possible. On the other hand, Tesla – without having a history like ours – has done the same…”.
Yes, but why electric? Couldn’t the same result be achieved with thermal engines, like supercars?Internal combustion engines are highly inefficient – continues Santucci – we must necessarily switch to electric. The calculation is easy, a diesel or petrol engine dissipates 70 percent of its energy and only the remaining 30 percent is used to move the car. But not only that: the way we fill up is also inefficient because we have always been accustomed to an inefficient use of car management. It is true, it is quick at the petrol station, but we stop to fill up when we are using the car. With electric you can refuel while we sleep, work, do something else. There are no stops during use. The switch to electric mobility requires a radical change in the way we use the car”.
Of course, perhaps the Italian market is not quite ready for this transition. But Jaguar is aware of it. They know that electric is not for everyone, they say it and admit it. And paradoxically, they make the “problem” a point of pride. On their websites you can read that they no longer consider aesthetics as an isolated concept, as it was in the past, but strictly linked to ethics. To get to their almost philosophical concept “aesthetics and ethics” which is the basis of Modern Luxury, the strategy they follow using alternative construction methods, new manufacturing processes, new choices in the selection of components and new opportunities for the use of materials.
Max Lawson, co-author of the Oxfam report and an expert on social and economic inequalities in the world, says that “the richer you are, the easier it is to reduce your personal emissions and those related to your investments.” This means that people with more financial resources are more likely to take action to reduce their emissions and contribute to the fight against climate change. Therefore, companies that deal with luxury products can play an important social role in this context. The concept is a bit like this. And it is no coincidence that Jaguar Land Rover has invested so much in green (£5 billion): the largest financial commitment in their history.
But the topic, today, is broader. The president of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), Luca De Meo, explained it well: “Technological neutrality – he stressed – should be a guiding principle when it comes to framing the mobility of the future: the enemies are CO2, pollution, noise, congestion and not a single technology or another”. In short, everyone gets there as they want.
“And Jaguar gets there through motorsport,” explained James Barclay, team principal of the Jaguar TCS Formula E team.
The great challenge can be summarized as follows: today a modern Formula E starts with only 60% of the energy needed to finish the race. The drivers get the rest from the production of “current” from the brakes so they can complete the laps of the race.
To give you an idea, today an FE does not have rear brakes: the engines are so powerful in recovering kinetic energy that – in fact – they behave like real braking systems: the latest model of electric racing car regenerates almost half of its power from braking in what the International Automobile Federation (FIA), the organizer of motor sports, has described as the most efficient Formula E car ever. It is just an example, but it explains well the concept of technological avant-garde, of how, even today, a lot can be gained from motorsport. Even the possibility of relaunching a glorious brand like Jaguar. After the “Tesla case” that has effectively cleared the utilitarian image of battery-powered cars, now the English brand could make electric cars take a further leap forward. We will see. The challenge is launched.
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