JAGUAR XE

JAGUAR WAVES GOODBYE TO LOWER-END PRODUCTS”

- ANDY ENRIGHT

JAGUAR IS ON one heck of a cull. We recently featured the F-Type in Driven To Extinction, but the knife's going way deeper than the coupe and roadster. Shortly after revealing its F-Pace 90th Anniversary model in May, Jaguar's Castle Bromwich plant had already assembled the very final examples of not only the F-Type but also the XF Sportbrake and the car you see here, the pert XE sedan.

JLR's CEO, Adrian Mardell, went on to inform analysts that Jaguar would axe everything but the F-Pace SUV within the year with the withering comment: "none of those are vehicles on which we made any money." Indeed, in the most recent quarter, 86 percent of JLR group sales were accounted for by the LR bit, Jaguar contributing a paltry 14 percent.

The plan is to push upmarket towards Bentley with an all-electric line-up based on the long-wheelbase JEA EV platform. The company is targeting a production figure of less than 50,000 per year, ditching what Mardell described as "lower-end products".