It’s safe to say that Jaguar‘s rebrand to an uber-luxe, hyper-modern EV brand has drawn a polarizing reception. Given the headwinds facing EV adoption and many automakers falling back to cranking out hybrids and pure combustion cars, you might expect that the British marque is reconsidering its stance, and a recent Sunday Times report said as much. Well, Jaguar wants you to know that’s “rubbish,” and it’s pressing forward with its EV-only future as described.
That quote came from an unnamed “senior source” within the company, per Autocar, but a spokesperson offered a more diplomatic response: “Our plans to reinvent Jaguar as an electric-only luxury automotive brand are unchanged. We are looking forward to unveiling the first new electric Jaguar later this year,” they said.
The way the Times put it, Jaguar was “exploring” a hybrid model as part of “a secret initiative to soothe drivers’ concerns about running out of power on long journeys.” The purported powertrain would enable travel up to 680 miles on a full tank and battery, compared to the rumored 430 miles of a production Type 00 EV. The latter might sound like a healthy figure for an electric car, and it would be, but it’d pale in comparison to Jag’s diesels of old. Even the F-Pace diesel SUV we tested nearly a decade ago could run 600 miles without much effort.
So, the official line is that Jag’s not turning back on its mission—at least not yet. It comes following a complicated end to last year for the company, after it took two weeks to dispute a report that it had fired its design chief, Gerry McGovern. Even in that supposed attempt to set the record straight, Jaguar declined to confirm whether McGovern was still employed there. It’s now been over a month and a half since that saga began, and there’s been no further news on the subject.
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