Jaguar’s Next-Gen EV Platform Being Designed In-House
Over-the-air updates mean Amazon Alexa, and loads of voice functionality, is coming to a Jaguar near you!
It’s been almost exactly a year since we learned that come 2025, all new Jaguar product will be fully-electric. The announcement marked a watershed moment for the iconic brand, and since then, we’ve learned precious little about exactly how the company intends to put that plan into reality. The most outside folks have heard about Jaguar’s future plan in that forthcoming vehicles will be more expensive and have less overlap than the current lineup. It’s an unquestionably bold strategy designed around repairing a “damaged brand.”
Given the compressed timeline, it’d be natural to speculate that Jaguar would seek a partner to develop its electric platform. But now, we know that the company will be developing the new hardware in-house. This news comes courtesy of Jaguar Land Rover CEO Thierry Bollore, which is about as close to the horse’s mouth as you can get — even if his statement doesn’t offer much of a window into the nuts and bolts of the project.
Internally, the platform has been dubbed Panthera, and on a recent earnings call, Bollore said, “Concerning the new Jaguar, we’re making unique proportion a priority,” which is “the reason why at the moment we do it by ourselves.”
The complexity of developing an entirely new platform can’t be underestimated, so Bollore’s “at the moment” caveat could mean we’ll eventually see Jaguar partner with another automaker. Because the cost of such an endeavor would be intimidating for a company that was deep into the black, never mind one that’s just hoping to break even by the end of the new year’s first fiscal quarter.
Fortunately, the British government recently approved a $670 million dollar loan to assist with electric vehicle development, so for the moment, Jaguar has some breathing room. Personally, I think it should dust off the E-Type Zero project, retrofit more of its old hardware with modern powertrains, and fully exploit its rich and beautiful history.
That said? The next few years are a make-or-break moment for the company. Like most Jaguar fans, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the new vehicles are masterstrokes of design, and become as desirable as Patek Philippe watches and bespoke Rolls-Royce saloons. Cracking the ultra-luxury segment will be no small feat, and at this point, all the company’s chips are on the table. In less than three years, Jaguar as we know it will be gone, and whether the brand survives the transition remains very much unknown.
Photos: Jaguar Land Rover