Tata Motors has been hunting for a new CEO at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), and new reports claim the search is narrowing in scope. At the start of 2020, the company announced that Ralf Speth would step down as chief executive in September, and that the quest for his replacement had begun — though it technically began in 2019.

We’ve since learned he will stick around as non-executive vice-chairman of JLR and supervise the transition of leadership, with details now emerging about his likely successor. It’s a clever way of keeping him around as he ages into retirement at 65 years, as per the parent company’s corporate policy.

According to the Financial Times, Tata has narrowed it down to three candidates. Internally, JLR seems as though it would like to promote its engineering lead, Nick Rogers. But former Audi CEO Bram Schot and BMW development boss Klaus Fröhlich are also under consideration, in addition to Fred Schulze — Audi’s product line manager at the Ingolstadt plant.  (Read More…)

Fielding a full range of passenger cars is soooo yesterday, man. Almost no one does it anymore. Certainly, no American automaker, anyway.

Across the pond, Jaguar finds itself at a fork in the road. The sedan market is drying up, and along with it, sales of its compact XE and midsize XF models. The XJ is going electric, so that’s a decision already made.

But what to do at the bottom end of the market? (Read More…)

Ever since Jaguar launched the XE a few years ago, I’ve held high hopes for it. As much as I, like most auto journalists, dig the BMW 3 Series, I’ve always pined for more compact luxury sport sedan competition.

Mercedes has the C-Class, sure, and Lexus’ IS has often been a solid challenger, especially in certain trims. But the more the merrier, I say, and this particular Jag had a chance at contention.

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Ever been to a party where the most interesting person wasn’t the life of the room, but the quiet person in the corner, calmly — perhaps a little shyly — sipping their drink and taking in all the things occurring before them?

Vehicle designers seem like that person. The braggadocious CEOs and upper-level execs can have their carefully scripted buzzwords and future-minded visions of a soulless future filled with robot cars and never not working, but a designer will want to talk about emotion. A feeling. A simple pleasure. A small feature with outsized importance.

Jaguar’s design boss likes to talk about those things, but he’s not afraid to raise the errors of the past. (Read More…)

Jaguar’s I-Pace electric hatchback provides an interesting driving experience. When it has enough charge to be driven, that is.

The I-Pace I drove for a weekend last summer spent much of that time at the dealership, charging, because it failed to charge anywhere else near my home.

More on that in a minute.

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A brace of road-oriented electric crossovers will join the upcoming XJ at Jaguar Land Rover’s historic Castle Bromwich assembly plant, Autocar reports. The UK plant, formerly home to wartime aircraft production, will pivot to EVs with the help of a $1.2 billion investment.

With Jag pulling the bulk of its volume from crossovers, the addition of a larger crossover is a no-brainer; meanwhile, Land Rover’s shadowy Road Rover is said to be a go — minus the name itself. That leaves the slow-selling XE and XF sedans as the big question marks in the brand’s future lineup. (Read More…)

When rumors began to spread that Jaguar was on the cusp of axing its long-running XJ (seen above) in favor of an electric car with a more versatile body, the purist in everyone no doubt squirmed at the thought. The XJ is meant to be a flagship sedan, and part of that role involves looking like one.

Jaguar did end up discontinuing the model. Now, as the XJ’s replacement draws near, we can at least inform you that it won’t look like a made-over Citroën C6 that hums. (Read More…)

Jaguar Land Rover is reportedly putting I-Pace production on hold for a week thanks to a battery shortage at supplier LG Chem.

While sales of the model are ridiculously low in North America, European deliveries average about 1,000 units per month. That’s comparable to the Audi e-Tron, which also suffered production delays due in part to its relationship with the supplier. Before that, Hyundai was the one pointing the finger at LG Chem after running out of batteries for the Ioniq EV. (Read More…)

Jaguar Land Rover has decided to stall production at two of its British factories for several weeks. Starting in late February, JLR intends to stop work at both its Castle Bromwich Assembly and Solihull plants until the end of March. The factories won’t be totally inactive for the duration; the manufacturer claims there will be half days intermixed with full-day closures.

Unlike the bulk of plant idlings taking place across the globe (though mostly in China), this has nothing to do with the coronavirus. While the outbreak has begun disrupting supply chains as the PRC attempts to keep the illness in check by barring people inside their homes, JLR said it’s stalling UK production to address falling demand and Brexit complications — the latter of which is beginning to feel like a lame excuse.  (Read More…)

Ralf Speth, the longtime CEO of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), is stepping down. Parent company Tata Motors confirmed the move, saying Speth would continue serving as a non-executive vice chairman on the board holding company and advisor to JLR.

At 64, Speth is easing into retirement after having led the company for the last ten years. He’s scheduled to leave his post in September, having spent the brunt of his tenure expanding the company’s global footprint.

Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of the Tata Sons holding company, said a search committee has been formed will work closely with him to identify a suitable successor in the coming months. But news of Speth’s prospective replacement followed closely after the retirement announcement.  (Read More…)

As Jaguar Land Rover lunges forward with its “Project Charge” turnaround plan, things aren’t nearly as grim as they were a year ago. Which is exactly what the automaker’s parent, Tata Motors, wants to hear.

Despite a softening in global sales, the automaker made progress on many fronts, crediting its cost-cutting and product plan with a return to black ink. (Read More…)

Jaguar built the Series III Jaguar XJ for the 1979 through 1992 model years, and so I’ve been seeing these cars in the big self-service vehicle graveyards since, well, the middle 1980s. They still show up in such yards to this day, as long-neglected project cars get swept up in yard- and driveway-clearance projects, but I’ll only document those that are particularly interesting.

A very clean British Racing Green XJ6 from the last model year for the Series III’s straight-six engine certainly qualifies, so here we go! (Read More…)

A new Jaguar flagship is on the way, and the latest evidence of this shadowy cat is a series of spy photos snapped of a camo-clad sedan sitting atop a trailer. While the sedan itself is quite familiar, what’s underneath seems all-new.

Certainly, old-timey Jag aficionados won’t recognize what’s under the hood when the new range-topper arrives. (Read More…)

Maybe electric racing does have something to offer the common man. Jaguar credits its Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy race series (outside makes need not apply) for returning data that proved useful in eking out additional range from the electric crossover’s 90 kWh battery pack.

As things are all very modern in 2019, all Jag needs to do to pass the fruits of that knowledge on to consumers is fix them up with a software update. (Read More…)

Jaguar has revealed its facelifted 2021 F-Type, offering a sleeker body and angrier mug. Headlamps are now oriented horizontally, possessing the LED accenting we saw on the Vision Gran Turismo concept. The rest is more-or-less what you’d expect from the brand. Some of the curves have been smoothed out, an industry trend this writer has very mixed feelings about. But nobody screwed the pooch here. The F-Type remains an exceptionally attractive vehicle, intent on grabbing everyone’s attention without being obnoxiously flamboyant.

Overall, it’s a comprehensive update that transforms the vehicle without making it feel alien or desperate. You might even be fooled into thinking it was entirely new — which is the whole point of a mid-cycle refresh.  (Read More…)