Toronto, Ontario — This weekly Tuesday Ticker shines a light on moves in the alternative fuel space as Jaguar execs share frustrations regarding its massive shift to luxury EVs, while BMW and Toyota partner to produce hydrogen-powered BMW vehicles.
Jaguar jumping through hoops
Jaguar’s Managing Director says the OEM is at a “crossroads” amid its plan to shift to EVs.
“It’s been hugely frustrating—saying we’re going all EV then ‘nothing’,” said Rawdon Glover, who took over as managing director at Jaguar in February 2023.
The OEM announced in June that it would cut five models from its lineup, leaving only the F-Pace SUV. It added that the models cut were “zero profit” cars and the decision is part of the automaker’s shift to produce luxury EVs.
“We decided on this structure in 2021, but cars don’t appear overnight,” said Glover. “We need to take [the brand] back to when we made beautiful cars, not in huge numbers and not having huge numbers [of models] in the portfolio. Until recently, we were up to six or seven models.”
Clover stressed that Jaguar’s shift is “not just some new cars, it’s a complete brand reinvention,” and that there’s “no playbook” for the process.
The only Jaguar model on the market as of now is the F-Pace, but sales of that unit will cease in November.
Homies in hydrogen
BMW announced its plan to launch its first-ever series of production fuel electric vehicles (FCEV)—also known as hydrogen-powered vehicles—in partnership with Toyota.
After successfully testing the BMW iX5 Hydrogen pilot fleet worldwide, the BMW Group is now preparing for a series production of vehicles with hydrogen drive systems in 2028 based on jointly developed next-generation powertrain technology with Toyota. The series production models will be integrated into BMW’s existing portfolio: i.e., BMW will offer an existing model in an additional hydrogen fuel cell drive system variant.
As FCEV technology is another electric vehicle technology, the BMW Group explicitly views it as complementing the drive technology used by battery electric vehicles (BEV) and next to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) and internal combustion engines (ICE).
“This is a milestone in automotive history: the first-ever series production fuel cell vehicle to be offered by a global premium manufacturer. Powered by hydrogen and driven by the spirit of our cooperation, it will underscore how technological progress is shaping future mobility,” said Oliver Zipse, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG. “And it will herald an era of significant demand for fuel cell electric vehicles.”
The BMW Group and the Toyota Motor Corporation can look back on over a decade of trusting and successful collaboration, wrote BMW in its press release.
As of Monday at 1 p.m. ET, shares of BMW traded at €77.64 per share (CAD$116.23), down 23.72 percent year-to-date. At the same time, Toyota shares traded at ¥2,500 (CAD$23.70) per share.
