This week's selection of snippets from the automotive sphere brings news of Seat's continuing rise towards premium status, a bright future for McLaren and Nissan's worries that governments could be doing more for autonomy.
London longing for electric Jaguars
UK sales of the Jaguar I-Pace will double to around 3000 units in the next 12 months, according to UK boss Rawdon Glover, though he predicted that five-digit sales of the EV would be at least five years away. More than 40% of I-Pace sales are within the M25.
Seat not so simple any more
The Seat Tarraco and stand-alone Cupra brand are pushing buyers into higher, hitherto unseen price points for the firm, much to boss Luca de Meo’s delight. “We’ve been on a journey, first to get people to consider our cars for more than £20,000 and now more than £30,000. It is working. There was no future in selling our cars for 15% less than similar ones,” he says.
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Can't build them fast enough
Happy to be told if I'm incorrect?
The £30,000 SEAT
"There was no future in selling our cars for 15% less than similar ones,” he says.
As a current SEAT owner (my first SEAT, purchased brand new), there's no future in counting me as a repeat customer if your prices are the same as other manufacturers. As much as I like the car, price advantage was the deciding factor.
3,000 UK I-Paces a year
Doesn't sound many but when they're averaging around £65,000+ each it's not so shabby for new tech. Certainly will be alot more than Mercedes and Audi's effort
xxxx wrote:
I will take the under on that...Merc EQC and Audi eTron will outsell i-Pace by 5:1 if not more...it isn't necessarily which is the better car (although non-UK reviews have the EQC and e-tron as superior vehicles) - unless you are a die hard Jaguar fan why would you put ~£70k into a low volume vehicle made by a company that might go bankrupt or be sold to PSA when you've got less risky options?
If that sounds harsh look at other segments: in Europe Merc sold 150k C-Class in 2018 and 38k in 2019 to March - Jag sold 10k XEs in 2018 and only 2,600 in 2019 so far - yet if you read Autocar or are on this forum the XE is "class leading". Add in the 3-seies and A4 and it is getting outsold 40:1 in Europe...
update
5:1 Looks like you were wong.
"made by a company that might go bankrupt or be sold to PSA " looks like you were wrong again