Think about that for a minute, Tesla which is 18 years old, is now manufacturing and selling more cars than Jaguar. In the British media, there is no shortage of pomp and pomposity when it comes to lionizing the 87-year-old Jaguar brand. However, Jaguar is beginning to show its age as it stumbles along and is on what appears to be a downward spiral to failure. Meanwhile, demand for Tesla is high, that is to say, demand is outstripping supply. Tesla recently announced it delivered 499,550 vehicles in 2020, just a few hundred short of Elon Musk’s 500k target. Industry analysts are looking at Tesla as a bellwether for the future of electric car and the car industry in general. That is why the company’s value has rocketed to $700 billion despite making very little net profits.
Jaguar, by contrast, manufactured just over 170,000 vehicles in 2020 and is really not making nor selling enough cars to be profitable. Indeed Jaguar cars are being kept afloat by Land Rover which is the profitable Yin and Yang of the Jaguar Land Rover business entity. Therefore it is easy to conclude that Jaguar is an abject failure in failure. Jaguar is living on memory and a bygone age, kept afloat by sections of the motoring media who want to tap into a dwindling PR and marketing watering hole. But the water is drying up and only goodwill and false hope are keeping Jaguar’s head above water as it drifts aimlessly out to sea.
The Jaguar Land Rover entity as it is now is probably worth around $10 billion. It is a company living on massive debt and a desire not to change. Or rather it has been slow to change. Yesterday is today for both Jaguar and Land Rover. Tesla has had its ups and downs and was once on the cusp of bankruptcy, but Elon Musk persevered and today Tesla is at the forefront of the electric car industry. And all motoring journalists can do is criticize Tesla’s build quality. They are not looking at the bigger picture.
Motoring journalists don’t criticize vehicle manufacturers for making unsafe seatbelts, electronic hand brakes or countless other defects that are a cause for mass recalls. But if Tesla makes poorly built cars then that is a big issue. Tesla does need to improve build quality procedures, that much is true. However, demand for Tesla will surely grow as the Model Y and begins to roll off the production line and into the showrooms. The Model Y will launch in September and cost an affordable $25,000.
But Elon Musk is wise to know that at some point, the tax payer funded stock market speculation bubble will eventually bust at some point.
