High inventory and low price make it difficult to sell Jaguar Land Rover to catch up with the intelligent last bus in China.

The inventory coefficient is the highest in the country, and the price is still difficult to sell. What happened to the former British luxury brand Jaguar Land Rover?

China automobile dealers association recently released the survey results of "Automobile Dealer Inventory" in July 2024, showing that in July this year, the comprehensive inventory coefficient of automobile dealers was 1.50, and the inventory level was at the warning line.

According to the survey, among all brands, Jaguar Land Rover is the brand with the highest inventory depth, and the inventory coefficient has reached 2.55. Far more than the average inventory coefficient of high-end luxury & imported brands is 1.38, and that of joint venture brands is 1.63.

On the afternoon of August 12, the reporter went to the Jaguar Land Rover 4S Center in the East Fourth Ring Road in Beijing. The prices of various Jaguar Land Rover models were greatly reduced. Among them, the official guide price of Jaguar XEL was 299,800 yuan, and the preferential price of phased bare cars was 165,000 yuan. The price was close to "waist cut".

However, Jaguar Land Rover, which is slow in electrification and intelligent transformation, has been declining in sales ranking in China, even though the price is greatly reduced, which has shown a trend of marginalization. It is still unknown whether Jaguar Land Rover, which has joined hands with Chery and invested 3 billion pounds in electrification, can catch the last bus.

There are not many consumers in Jaguar Land Rover 4S Center. Figure/Beijing News Shell Financial Reporter Lin Zishe

A variety of models are priced at "waist cut" 200,000 yuan to win the British luxury brand.

On the afternoon of August 12th, the reporter went to the Jaguar Land Rover 4S Center in the East Fourth Ring Road of Beijing. This center covers a huge area, with various models of Jaguar and Land Rover parked at the door. Several buildings are divided into new car exhibition areas and used car exhibition areas, which is enough to show that there were many consumers when the brand was brilliant.

Perhaps in the afternoon of a working day, when I walked into the exhibition area, there were not many consumers who came to buy a car. Only a few guests were looking at the car.

A large number of test cars are parked outside the 4S center. Figure/Beijing News Shell Financial Reporter Lin Zishe

In the new car exhibition area, sales staff told reporters that the current Jaguar model with the lowest price is Jaguar XEL, which is equipped with a 2.0-liter turbocharged engine with a maximum power of 250 HP and a maximum torque of 365 Nm. The official guide price starts at 299,800 yuan.

According to the salesperson, if it is a Beijing license and the car is purchased by stages, the price of the naked car after the discount can be reduced to 165,000 yuan, and the landing price is about 200,000 yuan. If you buy a car in full, the price of the naked car after the discount can be reduced to 185 thousand yuan, and the landing price is about 220 thousand yuan.

200,000 yuan will win the Jaguar XEL. Figure/Beijing News Shell Financial Reporter Lin Zishe

Jaguar XFL is placed next to Jaguar XEL, which is more spacious and business-oriented. The front seat is 8-way electric adjustment and 2-way manual headrest. The official guide price of this car is 399,000 yuan. If the car is purchased in full, the landing price can be reduced to about 300,000 yuan.

"For every car company, there will be a car that is responsible for the volume. This is its task. It needs to ensure that the price is relatively close to the people and drive consumers to buy cars." When asked by reporters why Jaguar XEL and Jaguar XFL have significantly reduced prices, the sales staff introduced this. "These two cars are now much cheaper and have a very good driving sense, which is very suitable for driving or family cars."

However, if you visit the Jaguar Land Rover showroom, you will find that most models have discounts at present.

For example, for a Range Rover Star Pulse, the official guide price is 638,000 yuan, the full price is about 465,000 yuan, and the landing price is about 500,000 yuan. There is also an official guide price of 429,800 yuan in evoque, and the landing price is around 300,000 yuan.

Only a few Range Rover models in the exhibition hall are more expensive than the official guide price, but it is not because the sales are in short supply, but because the official guide price is 1.748 million yuan, and the luxury car tax of 174,800 yuan is required according to state regulations.

For the preferential time, the salesperson said that there is no way to guarantee it. However, in the coming September and October, Jaguar Land Rover may send out some small car purchase gifts again, or give a car purchase discount of 5,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan on the current basis.

The landing price of Jaguar XFL is around 300,000 yuan. Figure/Beijing News Shell Financial Reporter Lin Zishe

The process of electrification and intelligence is slow.

If consumers just come out of new energy exhibition halls such as Tesla and Wenjie, and then walk into Jaguar Land Rover’s exhibition hall, they can clearly feel the difference in the logic of selling cars between them-Jaguar Land Rover emphasizes its British descent and luxury style, and intelligence is the obvious "short board" of the brand.

At present, in addition to the I-PACE launched by Jaguar in 2018, there are only a handful of new energy vehicles. Even in official website, Jaguar XEL’s introduction to science and technology is limited to "dual-screen exclusive touch system equipped with 10.2-inch high-definition central touch screen and 5.5-inch air-conditioning control screen, as well as 12.3-inch full LCD virtual instrument panel and high-definition full-color head-up display and high-definition ultra-wide-angle streaming media rearview mirror to realize five-screen linkage".

"If you have just come out of the Tesla showroom and come to us, you may feel different, and we are still driver-oriented." Sales staff also told reporters that Jaguar Land Rover comes standard with L2-level assisted driving, which can cruise automatically, but there is no further function.

In fact, sales staff did not take intelligence as a brand selling point. When asked if it has the function of reversing into the warehouse, the salesperson simply replied "No".

"The new car-making forces will equip vehicles with lidar or pure visual cameras, and then drive according to NOA navigation, but our traditional car companies will not do this." Sales staff said that traditional car companies are different from the new car-making forces.

In fact, traditional car companies are not mutually exclusive with electrification and intelligence, but Jaguar Land Rover has gone too slowly on this road.

In May this year, BMW, which is also a luxury brand, announced the latest electric vehicle plan at the annual conference, saying that 25 new models will be launched by 2025, 12 of which will adopt pure electric mode.

In August this year, Ou Lifu, Senior Executive Vice President of Mercedes-Benz (China) Investment Co., Ltd., publicly stated in an interview that the L2+ navigation assisted driving, the new generation intelligent parking and the third generation MBUX intelligent human-computer interaction system led by the China team have been carried on fuel vehicles and new energy products.

Next year, Mercedes-Benz will be able to achieve "no map" L2++, which can park from the starting parking space, pass through the urban area/expressway/urban area, and park at the destination parking space, so as to realize point-to-point intelligent driving ability.

As early as 2021, Jaguar Land Rover announced the full-scale electrification transformation, planned to launch six pure electric products, and clearly stated the goal of fully electrifying the Jaguar brand by 2025.

But by 2024, the electrification transformation of Jaguar Land Rover is still very slow. As a result, Jaguar Land Rover gradually began to fall behind.

Looking back on 2010, Jaguar Land Rover officially entered the China market, with an initial sales volume of only 26,100 vehicles. In 2012, Jaguar Land Rover quickly occupied the fourth place in the luxury car market in China with an annual sales volume of 72,000 vehicles, second only to Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi, and the sales growth rate reached 73%.

In 2013, Jaguar Land Rover’s sales in China increased by 30% year-on-year to 95,000 vehicles, making China the largest single market for Jaguar Land Rover. Until 2017, Jaguar Land Rover’s sales in China rose to 146,000 units, ranking fifth in the sales list of luxury brands, with a large number of consumers and fans.

The turning point appeared in 2018, and Jaguar Land Rover sales declined by 21.6%, and the ranking has been declining since then. In 2022, Jaguar Land Rover sold 13.44 vehicles in China, down 17.4% year-on-year.

In 2023, the automobile market in China has been growing, and the sales of various brands have continued to grow. The annual sales of Jaguar Land Rover is still only 100,000 vehicles, making it difficult to squeeze into the top ten in the luxury car market.

"Broken arm for survival" discontinued models catch up with the intelligent last bus

Under the pressure of sales volume, Jaguar Land Rover made frequent moves and even began to "break its arm to survive". It plans to stop production of XE, XF, F-Type, E-Pace and the first pure electric vehicle I-Pace.

Adrian Maadyr, CEO of Jaguar Land Rover, said publicly, "We will eliminate these products with low value and fail to bring profits, and replace them with new cars with new design architecture. This adjustment aims to optimize the product structure and concentrate resources on models with higher profit potential. "

To explore the China market, we must have a deep understanding of the market. In June this year, Jaguar Land Rover announced that it had signed a letter of intent for strategic cooperation with Chery Automobile, authorizing Chery Jaguar Land Rover to use the "Freelander" brand on its brand-new electric vehicle, which will adopt Chery’s pure electric platform and be produced at Chery Jaguar Land Rover Changshu factory. This also means that Jaguar Land Rover restarted the "Freelander" brand and handed it over to Chery.

It is also essential to increase the investment quota. According to Jaguar Land Rover’s 2023 annual report, the company plans to increase the investment in the electrification transformation strategy from 15 billion pounds to 18 billion pounds within five years.

Some analysts pointed out that with the acceleration of the transformation of the global automobile market to new energy vehicles, domestic and foreign automobile enterprises will also strengthen cooperation in the fields of intelligence and networking, and jointly promote the development of the automobile industry in the direction of intelligence and networking.

Driven by Chery, it is still unknown whether Jaguar Land Rover, which has been left behind for many years, can catch up with the last intelligent bus.

Beijing News Shell Financial Reporter Lin Zi

Editor Jake

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