Jaguar Reportedly Cancels Orders, Closes Dealerships and My Jaguar Portal, What's Next?

8 months, 2 weeks ago - 14 March 2024, autoevolution

Rumors about Jaguar scaling down its operations started to emerge last year, with new rumors making waves recently. The British luxury carmaker announced a major overhaul, but all the information points to the carmaker's operations being halted across the globe. The most likely outcome is that the Jaguar brand will be sold to a Chinese company.

Earlier this month, Jaguar announced a major overhaul, with all current models being scrapped from June, starting with the combustion vehicles. The official line is that Jaguar will be reborn as an electric-only carmaker with an entirely new vehicle lineup in 2025. However, rumors indicate that the brand will be sold to a Chinese company that doesn't need the current models. MG, another British company, had a similar fate and is now owned by China's SAIC.

Jaguar's decline was long in the making, with dwindling sales finally convincing Tata Motors, its parent company, that it was no longer viable. Early last year, reports emerged about a massive overhaul, with an entirely new lineup and a streamlined dealer network. Jaguar dealers in the US were convinced to give up the Jaguar franchise in exchange for extra allocations of hot-selling Land Rover models. The move paid off for them since most dealers sold both Jaguar and Land Rover in dual showrooms.

The move in the US mirrors a similar one in Europe, where Jaguar also wants to significantly reduce its dealership footprint. However, not all dealers are happy, as some recent reports show. Those who only sold Jaguar saw their business wiped out, with a very limited number of vehicles offered for sale. You can't turn a profit when you have less than 10 cars allocated to your dealership each month. This cascaded to customers' orders being canceled, as some shared on social media.

Jaguar dealers already talked about the overhaul plans pushed back to 2026. The production of all current models is planned to shut down in June, practically confirming that Jaguar will stop operations somewhere this year. This contradicts Jaguar's official statement that enough vehicle inventory exists until 2025 when the new EV models will start production.

However, new information paints a bleaker picture, as Jaguar announced shutting down its My Jaguar online customer portal. The My Jaguar portal will close on March 25, 2024, after which owners can access their Jaguar InControl account and Connected Services through the Jaguar InControl website. Everything points to Jaguar transitioning into an asset-light car brand, probably in light of an upcoming spin-off and sale.

Even if the Jaguar survives as a carmaker, it will likely abandon the US market. The brand failed to attract enough customers here, and the limited production estimates of its EV-only plan will not be able to support a dealer network or even become cashflow positive. Since Tata Motors, the parent company of Jaguar Land Rover, is also restructuring its operations in India, it would be interesting to see how the brand will evolve in the coming month.