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NEWS
Jaguar to feast on 'nicked lunch'
New small sedan can snatch significant sales from German trinity, says Jaguar bossJaguar isn't setting itself a goal of snaring 50 per cent of the prestige compact sedan segment with its 3 Series/C-Class/A4 rival. Not overnight at least.
But Adrian Hallmark, the company's global brand director, does believe that Jaguar's new small sedan will bring enough technological chutzpah to put on notice the three German competitors already entrenched in the segment.
"In simple terms, we will be able to build – as it stands today – the most efficient, the most technologically advanced and the most refined sports sedan, in that mid-sized segment," he told Aussie journalists at the Frankfurt motor show for the unveiling of the C-X17 SUV concept.
"If we're going to take on that segment, we're not going to try and achieve 50 per cent market share; we [just] want a little piece of the action. But if we're going to be successful, we need to bring something to the table, so with this combination of aluminium and these engines we can deliver less than 100 grams of CO2 – and at the far end of the extreme, performance: 300km/h."
From an Australian perspective, SUVs are going through a sustained sales growth spurt and tend to tip the profitability balance more in favour of the companies building them than small sedans – particularly small sedans with high-tech drivetrains and exotic materials technology. So why did Jaguar choose to base its first production model constructed around the new iq[AI] architecture on a a prestige sedan of this size?
"It's the biggest sub segment in the world," Hallmark explained. "So although crossovers or SUVs are very interesting, the sedan segment is the biggest in the world. As Frank Sinatra said, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
"If we can get our costs and differentiation – product-wise and technology-wise – right, in that segment, that gives us a basis for everything else that we do. This [pointing at C-X17 show car] would be easier. We could get away with a bit less efficiency. But clearly it's a long way from Jaguar today – and it's quite close to Land Rover today."
Hallmark continued by pointing out the revenue prospects from that market segment, despite the popularity of SUVs in large markets such as North America.
"The potential for that car – per year – is bigger than Jaguar's global sales last year. One car.
"So in terms of transforming Jaguar, it may not be a million and a half BMWs, but for Jaguar this is a big gig."
Jaguar has been there in the past – with the Mondeo-based X-TYPE. It wasn't a grand success for the company, but Hallmark could offer an explanation as to why Jaguar (with Ford backing) took that path. He blames Audi for the precedent the German company set.
"Audi, 20 years ago, entered that segment and changed the shape of that segment – from a Golf to an A4. They took a volume platform, made it four-wheel drive – used quattro – and did a brilliant job. World class. You've got to take your hats off to them.
"They could not do it that way, if they entered the market today. Full stop. The segment is way too competitive – and customers are much more informed.
"So for us to enter that segment today, we have to do it in a general way. We have to over-compensate almost for the fact we've been slow in developing ourselves in this marketplace.
"That's why this combination of the most efficient engines, the lightest and cleverest architecture that we can think of – together – give fuel consumption like a hybrid. Everybody else uses hybrid [technology] to get to where we can get to; we can do it without hybrid."
There is, however, one Jaguar competitor Hallmark cited as heading in the same direction: BMW.
"They have been able to steal a march on the competition, through EfficientDynamics," he said. "This was genius. It was well in advance of anybody thinking about efficient dynamics.
"Now in Australia, and in some other countries, it's not as effective as it is elsewhere. But if you're in the UK, if you're in continental Europe, or even in America... you look at the fuel consumption of a 5 Series and what they've achieved. It's genius."
Jaguar's management has thus learned from the (now outdated) Audi masterstroke with the original A4 and BMW's more recent EfficientDynamics initiative – as well as the British brand's own economically viable, large-scale aluminium production effort – to assemble what it believes will be an appealing package for the new sedan. The aim is nothing less than joining the German prestige brands on shoppers' lists, Hallmark said.
"I'll give you a bold statement, at the minute the world looks at it as the German Big Three that dominate the premium car market. Jaguar Land Rover would like to change that vocabulary to 'The Big European Four' – and Jaguar to be a part of that.
"For us to do that, we don't want to pick on any one of those three, to say we want to nick their lunch – or to use The Times' statement this morning, 'park the tank on the Germans' lawn'.
"What we want to do is enter the market with genuine products, with a strong brand that has got prestige that can trickle down into this new segment – and attract people by the intelligence of the offer..."
Artist's impression courtesy of Carparazzi
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Written byKen Gratton
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