Jaguar's electric 'opportunity'

Jaguar Land Rover’s SVO hot tuner division is actively examining the “great opportunity” electrification presents it for both on and off-road models it is developing. But it has also ruled out doing a Mercedes-AMG or Aston Martin and developing a bespoke supercar any time soon.

The British car-maker is hyping its electrification plans, entering the Formula E racing series this year. It is also developing an Electric Vehicle family codenamed X590 believed to include a luxury five-door ‘coupe’ and an SUV – both badged as Jaguars.

JLR’s SVO division develops vehicles along three streams – on-road performance badged as SVR, luxury badged as SVAutobiography and extreme off-road capability badged SVX. While there are both SVR and SVAutobiography models on-sale, the first SVX based on the Discovery is still around 18 months from launch.

“As a business we are very focused on EV,” SVO boss John Edwards told motoring.com.au.

“Formula E recognises the importance of that from a brand positioning perspective and in the future we clearly, in my area of the business, will look at EV.

“It is easy to think about EV in the context of performance and think about EV in the context of off-road capability as well. So yes, it has got great opportunity for us.”

While JLR has recently shown Land Rover Range Rover electrification concepts, little definitive is publicly known about the technology of the Discovery SVX, which will be based on the fifth generation Disco unveiled at the Paris motor show and which we covered off in detail.

But as motoring.com.au reported previously, the SVX could feature such cutting edge tech as laser depth-sensing devises, remote-control driving and the ‘virtual’ windscreen that uses cameras to project an unimpeded view ahead, helping you ‘see through’ the bonnet while off-road.

The Discovery SVX is one of four SVO modified vehicle set to appear in the next four years. The first will be the F-Pace SVR that has broken cover in Nurburgring spy shots.

Edwards wouldn’t detail what else was planned other than to say the intention was to provide most of the JLR range with one SVO halo model.

“Over the next four years we will introduce four new halo products and those are written down in the plan,” he said.

“The investments are allocated and we review that plan formally on an annual basis.

“We have a whole long list of ideas we think will be sensible to add to the plan, but at the same time we need to focus on delivery and delivering great products and building our reputation and building our expertise.”

Edwards said the level of SVO integration into core engineering development was also growing and would bear fruit with some of the four forthcoming models.

“Yes, we are absolutely at the stage where we are having that discussion with the core business and … Some of the product in our four year plan we definitely influences the core engineering, which will help to enable our halo products,” Edwards told motoring.com.au.

But Edwards dismissed the chances of SVO taking the next step and breaking away from the core product to develop its own bespoke supercar, as Mercedes-AMG has branched out into, announcing an F1 hypercar plan in Paris.

“Our short to mid-term strategy is very clearly producing halo products for the core range, that is what we are about,” said Edwards.

“Who knows what happens in 20 years time or 50 years time, remembering AMG is 50 years old. We are two years old.

“Our plan is we have a range of products most of which are out there on the stand today as a Jaguar Land Rover business and we look at each and every one of those products and saying ‘how can we push the boundaries on luxury, performance or capability. And that actually is our raison d’etre. That is what we are about.

“Would we like to make a supercar? Of course we would, but that’s not our business. Our business is halo versions of our existing products,” he said.

Edwards told motoring.com.au the opportunity for SVX badge was undefined, although he conceded it was unlikely to match the popularity of SVR-badged models.

“I think it’s a smaller niche, I think it’s a more unexplored niche but I definitely think there is a niche there,” he said.

“I know there is because we know customers talk to us about actually stretching the envelope in terms of capability. Of course, in terms of the Land Rover brand, that’s something that makes obvious sense.”

Edwards said both SVX and SVAutobiography did have opportunities to grow for SVO.

“Performance is the biggest and most obvious area. But the SVX area is white space and we think there is a healthy market there. [And] The luxury Autobiography area and personalisation area is [also] a real growing trend.

“That [SVR] is where the core business is today, but these two we think are real possibilities for us.”

Edwards conceded the SVX customer would be similar to an SVR customer in that they may rarely or never tap the full potential their vehicles offer.

“They may not use it to its full capability, or they may use it. Customers are individuals after all,” said Edwards.

“For example, a significant proportion of Chinese Discovery owners will absolutely take that car out into the outback into Tibet and challenge it and use it for what it is designed for. Others will just drive it in downtown Beijing and it may be capable, but they will never use its capability.

“When you buy our cars you buy them for a balance of rational and emotional reasons.

“You want to know your car can do something even if you don’t make it do it,” Edwards said.