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Jaguar, the British automotive icon featured alongside Aston Martin as the car of choice for James Bond, has recently garnered criticism for a bizarre ad with the tagline “Copy Nothing.” The ad attracted merciless ridicule for its bizarre use of models in garish colors, and for making no reference to actual automobiles, leading critics to term it as “woke.”
While the fallout from the brand’s ad echoes the reaction to Budlight’s ads featuring Dylan Mulvaney, this recent ad isn’t simply another case of woke corporate pandering. Rather, Jaguar’s move is an attention-seeking ploy as it desperately attempts to revive itself as an electric vehicle-only brand after years of stagnation.
While Jaguar has struggled financially for decades with buyouts from Ford and Tata, this recent debacle represents something more profound: the spiritual death of beauty in the car industry, brought about by forced electrification policies and emissions standards.
Known for producing the alluring E-Type (termed the “most beautiful car ever made” by Enzo Ferrari) and the world’s only V12 sedans, Jaguar once represented the pinnacle of Anglo-Saxon automotive excellence with its daring designs. It even made the world’s fastest car, the XJ220, in the 1990s.
However, in recent years, Jaguar has been struggling to sell cars and was eventually sold to India-based Tata Motors, alongside Land Rover, which has seen far more commercial success. As a result, its offerings have been lackluster in recent years, with only a few dull sedan and SUV offerings.
In fact, the F-Type and F-Pace SVR are now arguably the only exciting options for enthusiasts. Jaguar’s luxury status and powerful brand image doesn’t lend itself well to generic cars, constrained to smaller engines due to European Union regulations. It’s telling that one of its most recent successful products is the electric I-Pace SUV used on Waymo robotaxis; Jaguar vehicles are now so soulless that algorithms are driving them.
Thus, as the brand was floundering, and faced with increasingly stringent EU regulations which forced major carbon emissions reductions and a complete ban on gas-powered vehicles by 2035, it decided to make a last-ditch effort at relevancy by returning to its roots as an ultra-luxury brand, electric-only brand which could compete with Bentley and Porsche.
As regulations forced the brand to pivot towards becoming all-electric, Jaguar’s marketing department apparently thought it would be a wise idea to emulate Apple’s iconic 1984 ad which introduced its Macintosh computer to the American public.
However, the ad did not involve the company’s products at all, or even its iconic ‘leaper’ logo. Instead, in line with the brand’s DEI initiatives, they chose to feature an androgynous, multi-racial group of models and vaguely progressive platitudes like “create exuberant” and “break moulds.” While the ad has predictably garnered attention, this embarrassing advert exemplifies the spiritual death of the car industry - particularly the luxury car industry - brought about by overzealous environmental and emissions regulations.
The EPA and EU have time and again favored reducing consumer choice in the name of environmentalism. The EPA’s corporate average fuel economy standards have virtually caused the extinction of single-cab pickups by forcing them to meet tougher fuel economy standards. These fuel economy and carbon emissions regulations force car manufacturers to electrify and make increasingly smaller engines, making large-engined cars increasingly unavailable to average consumers, and making those large-engined cars increasingly bulky and disengaging to drive. Steep decline in American sports sedans, the extreme weight of the hybrid BMW M5, and the complete extinction of the V8 muscle car (with the exception of the Mustang) are mounting evidence of this trend.
This forced shift towards electrification and lower fuel economy not only reduces consumer choice, but also has dubious environmental benefits. Electric cars use extremely heavy batteries which reduce tailpipe emissions but increase toxic emissions from their quicker wear and tear of brakes and tires. In addition, the precious metals required to make these batteries are often sourced from developing areas like New Caledonia, where the Goro Mine has caused immense environmental problems. The reforms necessary to make only marginal gains in reduced pollution are not worth sacrificing our national security, consumer choice, and the convenience and enhanced driving experience gas cars provide.
Environmentalists will not stop at simply electrifying America’s automobiles. As Tesla made electric cars affordable and convenient, climate change activists shifted goalposts from eliminating internal combustion engines to completely overhauling our infrastructure with proposals like the creation of “congestion pricing” in places like New York and London, as well as the promotion of “15 minute cities.”
The sadder–and less tangible–impact of forced electrification is the soullessness it brings to the automobile industry. That isn’t to say that electric cars are universally bad; Teslas are perhaps some of the most efficient and economical cars for the features and comfort they offer, and electric sports cars such as the Porsche Taycan and Rimac Nevera have proven to be exciting and innovative.
However, a car’s character is driven by its engine. Taking away the roar of a V8 or V12 engine due to emissions regulations neuters sports car brands like Jaguar, which serve as iconic cultural symbols. Mercedes-AMG’s disastrous new C63, which uses a measly 2 liter 4-cylinder, has predictably floundered as a result. As EV sales begin to stagnate, consumers are realizing their inevitable drawbacks, such as reduced mobility in the winter and long charge times. Consumers clearly do not want to be force-fed EVs.
Many similar brands, like Porsche and Mercedes, have already realized that gas cars are an inevitable part of the future. However, when faced with draconian EU bureaucrats, flagship automotive companies like Jaguar, Aston Martin, and Ferrari will lose their character due to increased regulation. As a result, Jaguar is willing to abandon its iconic history and logo, along with the prestige it brings to the U.K.’s national image, for a negligible environmental impact.
Bureaucrats must understand that the ability to make euphoric-sounding and stunning cars has an intangible value that can’t be weighed against metric tons of carbon. Given that the United States and the EU have drastically reduced their emissions in the past decade, it's time for the war on the combustion engine to stop, especially for low-production luxury sports cars which barely contribute.
By hobbling the auto industry through arbitrary regulations, American and European automakers will not only lose ground and frustrate consumers, but willingly sterilize their cultural power. The West’s flagship cars, from the Dodge Challenger to a Lamborghini Aventador, should be allowed to be great again.
