Car companies tend to be resolutely apolitical. However, as a tough fight shapes up over Brexit, Jaguar Land Rover — parent company of Jaguar Cars — is weighing in. What will this mean for Jaguar dealerships like Jaguar Peabody, and what does it mean for a carmaker that is as synonymous with England as tea time?
To start with, Jaguar Land Rover isn’t alone in voicing concerns. They’re merely the latest in a long line of companies, including Airbus and Siemens, worrying about job losses and a significant financial hit in the event of a “Hard Brexit,” whereby the UK cuts many of the trade ties that bind it to the European Union.
For Jaguar Land Rover in particular, the worries are acute. As their CEO Ralf Speth put it in a statement, “A bad Brexit deal would cost Jaguar Land Rover more than 1.2 billion pounds in profit each year,” and further investments of about 80 billion GBP would also be jeopardized.
In addition to massive tariffs, the company — which directly employs about 40,000 and is indirectly responsible for about 300,000 when its supply chain as a whole is taken into account — could also face significant job losses, and has hinted that production could move elsewhere to ensure long-term survival. That would be good news for existing non-UK plants like Magna Steyr (where the Jaguar I-PACE and Jaguar E-PACE are currently built) and other offshore sites, but would be the end of an era for the Coventry-based automaker.
For Jaguar Peabody, the picture is mixed. We’re confident that Jaguar Land Rover will find a way forward regardless of the regulatory picture. However, disruptions could mean that it’s a longer time between innovative vehicles like the Jaguar I-PACE or popular favorites like the Jaguar F-TYPE, each of which has made the company a force to be reckoned with. In the interim, all we can do — like the folks at Jaguar Cars — is wait.
