Jaguar is shifting gears — away from “woke” weirdos and back to classy babes after an attempted rebrand drew widespread derision.
The British luxury automaker unveiled a $130,500 electric vehicle Tuesday night at a flashy New York City event featuring none other than bombshell Florence Pugh plus a performance from fellow Brit Sienna Spiro.
The company’s apparent pivot from a failed 2024 marketing campaign featuring androgynous models — followed by a widely panned ad featuring a disastrous “pink Batmobile” — was the latest U-turn from a business whose image suffered after trying too hard to be woke. Drinkers famously abandoned Bud Light in droves after its ill-fated 2023 partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, a campaign the brewer was quick to ditch.
Jaguar’s Type 01 model, a four-door “grand tourer,” has an ultra-long bonnet, low roofline, sleek silhouette, frameless doors and a camera instead of a rear window. It can go from zero to 62 miles per hour in 3.2 seconds and has a 400-mile range.
Orders will open at the start of 2027 and first deliveries are expected in the second half of the year. In the US, it will have a starting price of $130,500, a Jaguar spokesperson confirmed to The Post.
It’s the first step in Jaguar’s unprecedented shift toward becoming a fully electric brand, even after the company faced heated backlash over its rebrand and demand for EVs has waned.
Jaguar revealed parts of its rebrand and posted a 30-second ad online in November 2024, showing several androgynous models in brightly colored clothing and flashing clichéd phrases like “delete ordinary,” “break moulds” and “copy nothing.”
The clip notably lacked any mention of a car or Jaguar’s iconic logo, prompting Elon Musk, who owns the social-media platform X, to snipe sarcastically, “Do you sell cars?”
Backlash intensified two months later when Jaguar released an image of a Type 00 concept, a Barbie-pink electric vehicle aimed at winning over Gen Zers.
Fans online bashed the prototype as “cheap”-looking and compared it to a “pink Batmobile.” The pink car was never slated for production, but as an illustration to promote the upcoming Type 01.
Critics bashed Jaguar, calling the failed rebrand “Bud Light 2.0” – a jab at how the beer brand lost customers after teaming up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
The automaker defended its rebrand at the time, with managing director Rawdon Glover telling Sky News, “We want to be bold and disruptive … We’re clearly in the conversation.”
The luxury automaker also said it was hitting pause on any new models until 2026.
Jaguar Land Rover CEO PB Balaji said Tuesday the Type 01 model represents “an exciting new era” for the company.
“Combining British heritage, bold creativity, advanced technology and groundbreaking engineering, it reflects our ambition to create objects of desire that will help us invite a new generation of clients into Jaguar’s loyal and passionate customer base,” he said in a statement.
Italian carmaker Ferrari and British rival Bentley also launched their first electric vehicles this year – as demand for EVs has declined in recent years and competition from cheaper Chinese models has ramped up.
Chinese automakers clinched 60% of global electric car sales in 2025, while European and North American brands were responsible for just 15% each, according to the International Energy Agency.
In the meantime, JLR is still recovering from a disastrous cyberattack last summer that cost the British economy an estimated 1.9 billion pounds, or roughly $2.6 billion.
Last month, JLR – which is owned by India’s Tata Motors – announced 4,000 job cuts, or roughly 10% of its global workforce, over the next two years.
It blamed the need to cut costs on the cyberattack, intense Chinese competition and President Trump’s auto tariffs.
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