Rory Sutherland & Rawdon Glover - How Jaguar pulled off a design & engineering miracle

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to OnSense2CMO. Now I am here at Jaguar HQ and this ladies and gentlemen is the new Jaguar in the flesh. It looks unbelievable, but not just in my sat here next to the new Jaguar, myself and Rory Sutherland have been on the test track to be driven in it and we can tell you it is unbelievable to drive. And in this episode of OnSense2CMO, we're going to be talking to Walden Glover, the managing director to find all about how they designed it, how they achieved such performance and comfort and all about their plans to launch it later this year. This is fascinating, you're going to love it. Here it is. So I'm really excited for you back here with you and we've got a special guest joining us, Rory Sutherland as well, a big fan of Jaguar having an interesting aspect. You're the man to impress. Six Jaguar, yes. Six Jaguar really is now. But thank you for hosting us and letting us out on the test track. But let's start with the reviews. So obviously people have been in the car now, they've been driven around it and the reviews have been incredible. I mean best riding car ever feels like an XJ. So what goes into that creating the drive the way that it does? First of all, you need to have a really clear essence in terms of what is it that we need to have, as that dynamic capability. So it's great to have those sort of headlines, but it's not just by chance. We've spent hours distilling, I guess the essence of what should a Jaguar drive like. I mean you've had six Jagu's, you'll have a perspective. Yes. But what we did is we said to the team, the engineering team, the dynamosists, the chassis guys, these are the team that really decide how to drive. I said, don't drive the classic cars of our history and our heritage. Because we really want you to immerse you in that and get to understand what a Jaguar should be. Now clearly it's, you know, these are cars with very different technology, etc. But by getting into them and really understanding, not just in terms of okay refinement, control, performance, delivery, those things, but more importantly, how should a Jaguar make you feel? What's the essence of the brand? What's the DNA of the brand? That's where we started. That really then has been the their challenge from then on in. It is okay, how do we get incredible refinement? How do we get a level of before we talk about power and reserve? Is a Jaguar expression of the old? How much power do you need? Well, you always want to have some in reserve. How do you deliver that power? We need to deliver it in a way that the driver always feels completely in control of actually what they're doing. It's a lovely feeling that it's not about using resources. It's knowing you have resources you can draw on. It's the deposit account, not the current account, as I was saying. I think that deliberate self-restraint built into the early application of power is totally appropriate, isn't it? And a lot of, because all of these are relatively quick. And we could have put all our effort into how do we get an all to 60 in 2.4 whatever seconds? So we'll actually know the impressive thing from a Jaguar is probably how it goes from 70 to 70. Yes. Yes, it'll be quick, not to 60, but actually the performance there after is and how we deliver that power is really important. So first of all, understand it and then effectively use the, I guess, the resources we've got are available. This is the most powerful Jaguar we'll ever make over a thousand horsepower. It's got three separate drive motors, two at the two at the back alone. A capable of delivering 950 horsepower. So huge power potential, but it's then, don't abuse that. Just understand how to deliver it and ensure that it's true to the brand. So that's really what you have, but how you spend it. It is, isn't it? Yes, how you use it. The real shock for me though was the comfort levels. Because the car is so low to the ground, it looks like a sports car. The wheels are obviously very large as well. You're expecting a harsh ride and to be thrown around. But it's almost like being in an XJ. I mean, the comfort level, it's just astonishing. How do you get that balance between incredible performance and comfort? Yeah. So it's a lot about how the chassis is set up and we'd spend hours in terms of rig testing and just find different ways of exploring the full capabilities of what that vehicle can do. And actually there's a lot of really interesting technical stories that will probably unveil at launch, just in time how we've confounded some of those potentially. Because you think it's got a super low bonnet because normally what you do in suspension is that the bigger the travel and the suspension, that the easier you get to have that, we find it to ride. But we've got a really, really low bonnet. So how have we done that? And actually what they've done is, and I'll tease you with it, there's some really just genius ways. Simple ways of right, oh, you've done that. That's how that works. That's why that's there and that's there. So yeah, there's just lots of, we talk about engineering ingenuity and that's the challenge for our team because we're very, very, you know, this car is very single minded. You know, how it looks is really important and it's designed first. But it has to drive in a certain way and it has to have a certain level of range. So that's the challenge if you like that we've given to the engineers to say, okay, we understand the parameters. All of these things potentially conflict. We need to find a way where actually we can make them all live really harmoniously. I mean, Rory, reminding me a bit of Will Goddara's famous idea of choose conflicting goals that sometimes actually trying to do things that appear contradictory actually forces you to be more creative and innovative. Yes, I mean, some of Roger L. Martin, the brilliant strategist, makes this point that, you know, resolving an apparent contradiction, you know, an enormous amount of innovation happens when someone takes something where they assume a trade-off, come in it obliquely and effectively realise it needs to be a trade-off at all. And it's, you know, it's integrative thinking, I think he calls it. Now, it's a fantastic, really, really valuable skill. But that's what fascinates me about electric cars in general, which is the inherent contradiction we always assumed, which is kind of comfort versus performance, effectively disappears. And other things, I think it's very interesting that ride and design and other things will come to the fore when, to an extent, performances a bit of a given. So, you know, fundamentally, I think the way in which cars are evaluated needs to be, you mentioned the fact that naught to 60 isn't a very relevant measure because you now have many, many cars that can do naught to 60 in a time that nobody actually uses practically because it can be slightly insane. And the very metrics have to change, I think. But I mean, the design integrity fascinates me, the extent to which you effectively design a car and then engineer to the design, explain to me why range rovers to me, and obviously, actually all of your line up, but looks cohesive in a way that no other car does. In other words, everything else, you feel that actually it's been compromised to the simplicity of manufacture or the engineers have overwritten some aesthetic decision. And that incredible kind of way in which a range rover looks like a polished stone in a way that everything else looks like a collection of parts. I find that really impressive. Well, one thing I've been noticing in all the press, well, not only is the car wrapped in zebra stripes, which looks completely striking, but you've been testing it on an ice lake in Sweden. Like, what on earth. Yeah, I did wonder that too. Obviously. Why a lake? There's method in the madness. So, testing vehicles on basically flat surfaces with very, very little grip is the best conditions for refining basically things like torque and power delivery. So, for us to actually fine tune the handling of the car by taking it into those most extreme environments is optimal. And I guess in simple terms, if it can do what we need to do on an ice frozen lake in Sweden, a wet rain in the night in stoke is not going to be a problem. But also for EVs, that sense of whether it's the battery efficiency, the battery charging, your cold start, you're putting it under the most exacting conditions. So, it has a cold weather testing at the same time. We also do hot weather testing, so we'll do stuff in the desert, which again, obviously the extreme heat brings all sorts of other challenges, which we need to make sure we can accommodate. But this car will be the most rigorously tested Jaguar in history. So, for us, that sense of this just real sense of painstaking, let's put it through its paces, because it needs to be the best Jaguar ever. So, let's take it to the harshest places on the planet and really test it. So, that's why we do it. I want to just add to any past Jaguar owners that the new one has an ice and snow it does. Which by the way, to anybody who owned a Jaguar in the 80s, 90s or 2000s, even you will admit this, on mud and snow, they were absolutely atrocious. Not their finest moment. In fact, if there was quarter of an inch of snow at home, I used to leave my car at home and get a taxi. I was so terrified. Absolutely glorious and the wet, glorious in the dry, but ice or mud were a catastrophe. So, this is very, very well. Of course, it's four-wheeled, effectively four-wheeled traffic. It is. Yeah. And this is the traction control. It just enables you to have a level of stability and the grip goes to wherever you need it. So it'll be, it'll be transformationally in that sense. - The steering was quite tight as well. Is it four wheel steering? - Yes. - All wheel steering. - So yeah, so it's a long car. So the production car is over five meters but it'll have the turning circle of a fear 500. So it's in terms of its maneuverability, which is that really important to the Jagu. You've got to feel comfortable in it. If you feel like I'm driving a big car, then that's not a Jagu. You need to feel comfortable in it. So things like the all wheel steering are really important. - Well, this is surprising when we went out on the test track earlier and chatting to the engineer about it as well because I said to him, how close is the real car to the concept, right? And he's like, no, no, no, no, we had to deliver the same thing because often when you see concept cars and then when you see the real car, they've evolved quite a lot, haven't they? - Yeah. - Between the concept. But this is very true, isn't it? So what challenges did that give the engineers to deliver on the design vision? - Hundreds, I mean, a point you talked about opposing. With an EV, the more batteries you have, the more range you have is a general, which is why most EVs are quite tall because you have a big stack. But we've said, actually, we want our car to be low riding. Our production car is 1.4 meters tall. That's really, that's pretty low. But we also say, that's got to have 700 kilometers for a dramatic range. So you have to confound logical thinking. So nobody else puts batteries ahead of the bulkhead. So a certain position in the cabin, because actually you want to keep them away from, you want to keep them away from crash impact. Now for us, the choice then is, do we want to compromise on range? Or do we want to compromise on height? The answer is we don't actually want to do either. So we've found, we've paid into it, we've found a completely new way, we've got a battery stack that's ahead of the bulkhead. But actually what we had to then do is completely reengineer how in the event of an impact, how that energy is then managed. And again, that in itself, there's probably no logical reason why you do that. Apart from just an absolutely kind of die-hard passion to say no, we need to deliver on that concept. Now that in itself gives us an extra 70 miles of range, without any compromise to the height and the design of the vehicle. And for me, that's a great little analogy for that's the jaguar story that's told over and over again. We've got our own dedicated platform for relatively small number of vehicles. That, if you just look at that-- And it's 850 volt, not 800,000. That would be like a-- and you'd think that was an insane thing to do. But for us, it's the-- we think that's the best way for us to compete and the best way for us to win is kind of not doing it the way everybody else does. And yeah, that's the jaguar story. Who would you infisuge as the target audience apart from me? Well, and John. I was going to say, John's in there as well. So as you'd expect, big capital project, we do-- we clinic, we research, we do that. People are open to EVs, first and foremost. There will be a group of people that are not open to EVs, and that group varies in terms of size and magnitude, depending where you are in the world. But then what we find is there are certain unifying mindsets. So what are the things that there are people that are-- they value crushmanship. They're interested in technology. But probably more important than anything else, they want a brand that's really individual. They want to stand out. They want to be driving the same thing that everybody else is doing in the street. So that desire for individuality and selecting a brand that actually speaks to them in that way. So that's when we talk about this sort of unifying mindset. That's most important. And to be honest, whether they are super wealthy in their 30s or an existing luxury car buyer in their 50s or 60s, it's that little bit about, actually, I want to have something that's a bit different. And I want to have something that's got an narrative and a story and some real substance behind it. That's who we think will be behind these things. Well, a good proof point. We had-- no, Mac was here from Jim Shark earlier. And he's a petrol head. And he's got a completely restored, beautiful, pristine defender. And he's ardently defender of that kind of thing. He walked in this morning and went, I'm buying that. Just like that. Store it. I'm buying one. So I think you're seeing it in the flesh as well. Because it looks very much like a concept car design, doesn't it? When you see it in the flesh and realize it is as advertised, it's stunning, isn't it? Yeah. I think that's sort of-- I think we talked earlier on about familiarity and does that help. I think it's more physicality. Actually, it was interesting. Null's impact is what I've seen it on my phone, but actually seeing it here. It's one hell of a presence. It's completely different. And we have that time. And as you can imagine, I presented this to lots of journalists, presented to lots of clients at places like Goodwood and Pebble and all over the world. And the one thing with it we know is actually, when you see it physically, the scale, the presence, the craft, because actually it can look quite flat, particularly in the colour finishes. But actually, then you understand the precision, how the intersections work, the real detailing that's gone into that craft, and the love that's gone into it. You need to see it physically. So that'll definitely be a challenge for us and some sort of, OK, well, how do we get that across? And how do we photograph the craft? So that's our next thing. There's a photography of it. It's got to be able to capture all of those things I've just talked about. And that's actually something we're literally taking on this week. So-- It still has in an incredibly futuristic form that sort of British brand nods to the country house exterior, doesn't it? There's that slight-- you know, that little bit of Robert Adam Portico to the thing. And I suppose it's in the lower proportions that you achieve that, isn't it? Proportions are everything we're-- Yeah. In terms of the production vehicle, and actually, same for the concept car, there are certain things that are important to us. So if you stack two wheels on top of each other, that's greater than the height of the car. So the relationship between overall height and wheel size, really important-- Whoa, you're right. Then you've got the size of the front overhangs is tiny. The bonnet is disproportionately long, doesn't need to be. And most EVs don't, because you don't need to put an engine in there. So we can have a really small cab forward bonnet, but you end up with a vehicle with a very-- a lot of EVs with a very homogenous profile, whereas for us, getting that sense of scale-- and that is where there's perhaps a nod to, if you think about, some of the iconic vehicles in Jaguar's history, whether it's the E-Type or the XJS, et cetera. They all had really exuberant proportions. And the roof line from the A-pillar all the way to the rear. For us, we never wanted to try and do a restomod or ape the exact design of things we've done in the past, but it was more about understanding the essence of-- when the E-Type landed, it really shot people. They'd not seen anything like that. I've read some of the early auto cars, auto cars are super important. So for the auto industry, it's one of the most influential, and it's been around forever. So I went back and read, what did they say about XJS when it replaced E-Type as a spirit successor? And it's like, well, they loved the refinement and the power. But it would just have that. But actually, we're a bit concerned about how polarizing the design is. Yes. And now that's car is seen as an absolute classic in terms of its design, its proportions, the beautiful see pair at the back. So that's in our DNA. And that's, I guess, also part of our story. And we talked about-- when we talked about the first time around, the sort of fury and a few left your history and heritage behind. I think we've worked hard, and we're communicating much more over and over early. And I say, look, we call them the origin stories, whether it's that sort of breaking with convention, whether it's the exuberance, whether it's how the car drives, whether it's our use of color. These are all things-- and I think brand management is about really peeling the kind of layers back of your brand and really understanding what are those notable high points you think this is the essence of our brand. And this is what we're going to celebrate. And this is what we're going to take forward into the 21st century, rather than which I think has little integrity and little interest for people see through it. If you think, well, we just want to make one. That was really successful. Let's just make a bit more of that. Let's make a bit more of that or try and do that with the battery. We've got no interest in doing that. It's interesting. Your new spirit of Jaguar campaign really shows that off, doesn't it? Because when you do see XJS and you see type, and you see the latest one all together, you realize how similar the silhouettes are as you know, a long bonnet. And also learn something new today about the-- is it called the premium gap? The gap between the wheel and where you-- We're obsessed with premium gap. That's the gap. There's actually, in terms of how far you've got from the back of the wheel to the accelerator pedal. Yeah, so the premium gap is really where it will be from where the-- effectively where the driver's foot will be to the center of the front wheel arch. And it's actually what gives the car its presence in our opinion. And the proportions of the premium gap on our vehicle is identical in terms of the overall length of the car to what we did on e-type. So there's little nods to the past without us saying, well, let's-- And so you've managed to use the premium gap to house some of the batteries. Absolutely. But by changing that. By changing how we manage the crash structure. And again, this is say without that, we just lost 70 miles of road. Very funny story from this. By the way, I already explained. I live in the roof, OK, in the attic of a robber lad in the house. And it was built by George III's doctor. And the story was he didn't want the house to be too because he was terrified the king would come and stay. But every house there in the 18th century had to have an enormous staircase. So the question he faced was this fantastic architectural problem, which is how do you have a suitably prestigious staircase, which is the premium gap of the 18th century? But in a small house, you'd end up with a useless U shape of rooms around the outside, all of which were too small. So what Adam did was he banged the staircase into the corner. So you came in through the front door, and then you turned to the right. The staircase was in the corner, which I was about a quarter of the size of the house. And then there's quite a useful L shape of rooms, all about 20 feet square, that go around the outside. So that was the 18th century equivalent of your premium gap. Who knew? Who did they say? [LAUGHTER] It reminds me of your James Watt story as well, doesn't it? Inventing the horsepower. Inventing horsepower as a met-- Well, this is one of the questions which I was saying that the metrics have to change for electric cars. And I think things like the 20% to 80% charging time is silly, because in the five years I've had electric cars, I don't think I've charged from 20% to 80% more than about twice. And I understand why those metrics develop. But one of the metrics I don't think we're understanding with electric cars is price. Because most people will react to that car and say, it's very expensive. But compared to a petrol car that could achieve the same thing, it's actually a budget. Does that-- OK. So I went out and bought a car. Now, I only bought the 600, not the 900 horsepower Lotus Electra. But it suddenly occurred to me that in petrol form, if I wanted that car, I probably would have had to pay three times as much. If I wanted anything like the equivalent performance, quietness, everything else. And so this is another interesting question, which is one of the things we saw was people trading from an Audi to a Skoda, and a petrol Audi to an electric Skoda. And everyone who was completely bemused by this, and I said, well, what good thing is, in some respects, an electric Skoda is probably better than a petrol Audi in all kinds of respects. In other words, when we're making this comparison between internal combustion engine cars and electric cars, it's in a sense it's not an apples to apples comparison at all. So that car is in some respects given what you would have had to pay to obtain something like that in petrol form. It's actually a mere bag of towels. I realize your socialist viewers are not going to-- if I'm there saying, you know, $130,000 a car, it's really not that expensive. But in some respects, no, it isn't, is it? But I think that there's a point here about the purest view of the dynamics. Because when you kicked off the start of the discussion, you said, the response to the dynamics of the vehicle has been incredible. We're blown away. We were confident that actually reading it has been fantastic. But what I don't think people are still quite getting is, it is able to do that because it's an electric vehicle. Because you can't say, I love the way it drives, but it's an electric vehicle. Well, it is able to do all the things you love about it. So there's probably four-- I mean, I could give you lots, but I'll give you like three or four. So in terms of the driving dynamics, that car has-- so any dynamist will tell you that they want 50/50 weight distribution. Well, if you've got a rear or a front mounted engine, that's near and impossible. Of course. So with an electric car, you can do that. With our vehicle, the way we've designed it, the driver-- because your cab rearward, the actual driver sits right on the center of gravity of the vehicle-- literally, centimeters above it. We've even created a foot garage in row two, which enables us to lower the position of the seat of the driver. So you are literally on top of that. So the center of gravity is everything. We talked about the power. It's got three motors. But not only does it give you that incredible power and an ability to deliver that power pretty much in any way you choose. The ability to put the power where you need it, so whether that's traction control or whether it's managing the torque and putting it whether it's front rear left right. We ought to say torque vectoring should work. It's mandatory to say that, nanny car, brother. I'm just trying to avoid it. We have to say experience there. We've been mentioned AI and torque vectoring. Now we've done it, we've been put a big-- Well, my engine is-- Thank you. Yes. It's instantaneous. It's done over 1,000th of a second. So that sensor and probably what you picked up on your driver is that sense of, I'm going at high speed, but I feel really comfortable because I'm sitting in the car, not on the car. As the consequence of that center of gravity, also the car shrinks around you. It denies its size. You've got this incredible power, but it's delivered in a way that you've got utter confidence. Totally sure for it. I mean, free-cushely. Those are all enabled because of being an EV. That's really important. And that's going to be a key message for us to really land as we get into this next phase of-- And it's funny because of being electric, you think it's going to be very modern, very notched jaguar. And yet, the ride feels like jaguar, the kind of role in the corners feels like jaguar. The progression of the-- it feels like a V12 almost, doesn't it? In terms of how the power progresses, which is incredible. So you feel more jaguar, rather than less jaguar, when you're driving it, which is astonishing. I was getting flashbacks to my ownership of the last XJ I had, particularly in terms of the driving position and the sure-footedness as well. No, I mean, it's very strange because the idea-- the pureists who I-- I, to some extent, I understand it, by the way. I mean, there are two things. There's a love of motoring and there's a love of cars. And they're slightly incongflinked, aren't they? In other words, I understand-- to be honest, in order to get to work from Seven Oak to London, I support the electric train. But I entirely respect those people who worship steam and locomotives because they are inherently very lovely. And there is something about the internal combustion engine in all manner of ways of noise and smell, which is inherently lovely. But the idea that the William Lions, for example, or Henry Ford, if they were alive today, would not be pursuing electric vehicles, seems to me inherently ridiculous. Actually, Henry Ford did pursue an electric vehicle with Edison. The other thing I think is that the-- as you said, all those things are made possible because of electrification. It's not an other word to compromise for environmental purposes. It is genuinely. And by the way, the scope-- I think the other point I make, obviously not so much relevant to Jaguar Land Rover, is the scope for widespread innovation in electric powered vehicles, including things like the Mike Trellino, which I've test driven, which I rather love. Now, it's not a great motorway vehicle, but if you lived in Chelsea and your entire sort of scope of operations was going to Deltsford, Organic, and Alphonse, OK, it would be really rather an admiral thing. Now, you can't do that. Well, you can. They did, obviously. There was the bubble car. But you can do it elegantly an electric vehicle in a way you never could with a miniaturized petrol engine. And things like the Heathrow Pod, which are a huge devotee of-- that's a form of transport that deserves to be explored much more. Because it's kind of halfway between a taxi and a bus. It fills that kind of missing space. All of that is open to be explored with electric in a way that we kind of hit a dead end, I think. Well, so much of this is challenging people's existing perception. I know you got retweeted by Elon, didn't you, the other time? Which is hilarious. But what was the point you're making about? If you imagine you were launching petrol today-- Yeah, if all cars were electric-- --which was the default. Conceivably, if you believe some people, they argue that the early electric cars were more a marketing failure than they were a practical failure. And the idea was they became seen as very feminine because you didn't have to crank start them because they were quiet. They didn't spatter oil over the place. They were disproportionately popular with female car buyers. At a time when female car buyers were probably 3% of the car buying market. And there is a school of thought that says they actually got depositioned because of the imagery, the user imagery, not because of the inherent technology. But my point was, if you imagine a parallel universe where all cars were electric and you went along and recommended the internal combustion engine as a source of motive power, the whole thing would seem ridiculous. You fill a tank with an inflamible liquid. You set fire to it. You need a gearbox, you need an oil filter, you need an air filter, you need a radiator. You need 117 moving parts rather than 7. And you'd go, well, what are the advantages, exactly? Well, is it quieter? No. Is it better performance? No. Is it cleaner? No. It's really quick to refuel. Can you refuel it at home? No, no, no, you can't refuel it at home. That would be insanely dangerous. You can't have people with 200 gallons of gasoline under their house. So it's one of those reframing, which it's absurd as suggesting, in a sense, no one's suggesting petrol powered drones, really, although for the most part, fundamentally, everything has moved towards electrification. The only reason the car didn't was the whole energy density question, which is increasingly being solved year by year, [BLANK_AUDIO] essentially. I mean, I'd just a pick up a couple of a couple of points there that you come out once you get used to driving electric car, the novelty of going back to a petrol station. Yeah, it seems crazy, isn't it? It's like, you've got to go there, you've got to queue up, you've got to spend 10 minutes filling, then you've got to queue up and pay, and then my wife says, "I look at those people filling up, but it looks weird to me." She says, "Yeah." Because, and even, I guess, with first generation range of 180 to 240, whatever, 94% of people do all that charging at home. But next generation range, so this car has to say 400 plus miles, you're only going to be charging at home pretty much. So this idea of range anxiety and inconvenience, I think is a real fallacy, but you need to experience it to go through that process. And Roy, as you often say, we're always focusing on range, which affects on anxiety. Reducing anxiety, reducing anxiety, reducing anxiety. The user interface, which is, when you're above 70%, you really don't need to say 73%. I don't need to know that I've lost 1% of my battery capacity when I go to the shop. Actually, 70%, the petrol gauge only gave you a vague intimation. The app should probably tell you the individual percentage, because you're actually charging and you need to know. But actually, that need, when I'm driving around, 60%, 60% plus, 70% plus will be fine. I don't need that level of granularity. And there are lots of other things where we could, you know, if you'd had good UX designers, the design of public charging stations originally in the early days was an absolute abomination. The location of the absolutely hopeless. Effectively, I think range anxiety is hugely relevant to the buyer, to the user, it more or less disappears. So my wife's got one of the electric mini-coopers, which only has a range of about 100 miles, because it's one of the relatively early ones. And even owning that in the entire time, which is five years of electric car ownership, we had range anxiety once. And it suddenly occurred to us, well, we used to get petrol anxiety once every five years. It's not actually that new. No. And so it's one of those very strange things, which I think is massively important at the point of purchase, but almost irrelevant at the point of use. All right, all right. Sorry to interrupt this conversation. I promise you it's for a good cause. So I've just put a rather large deposit down on a very big venue in central London, called the Outernet, that can hold 400 people. It's an amazing venue. Now we're going to be doing the very first unscented CMO, the calling. Now, what is the calling? The calling is your opportunity to join us live and be inspired by the world's best founders, the most inspirational CMOs, and the best thought leaders. This is one day that will completely transform your career, I promise. It will be well worth it. I'm so excited to be doing this. And if you want to find out more details, please go to the show notes and check it out. And I really look forward to seeing you there. It's on the 21st of April, do not miss it. Now, back to the show. Well, I'd love to know your take on Rodinon Fraury and Lamborghini. Oh, it's fascinating how they've gone down different avenues, haven't they? Because Fraury's gone very retro and Lamborghini's gone hybrid. They have, and I mean, interestingly this week Bentley had talked about they're actually not going to go hybrid. Their first EV is going to be EV only. So it's a real mix back. It really is in terms of how people are involved. And Rolls Royce is slowing down on electrification, they claim, is that right? I understand that. Yeah. Whereas I think for us, it's what we've been talking about all this whole conversation really. We started off saying we want to make the best jaguar possible. We maintain that all of those things that a jaguar should have, all the things we talked about, that are grace-based. Grace-based. Grace-based and space, you know, power and reserve, all that sort of stuff is actually, it's just much better for us to deliver that. And as well as the the design flexibility that it gives you in terms of package and how you can, how you can, you know, develop the proportions, et cetera. For us, I mean other people will do what they will do. And I think it's important that we continue to look left and right, but more importantly, I think we've got to be really clear on what we've set out to do. And, you know, we, you know, this is where we want to play, and this is how we think we're going to win. And absolutely, absolutely stick to that. And, again, go back to your very first question, your very first statement is people have been blown away by the way the car drives. You know, this doesn't look like any other EV on the road. And certainly for a long period of time, such a spec won't. And currently, I don't think it drives like many other EVIsers. So if somebody says, well, we're really not sure there's EV at this price point. Our answer to that is we're doing something quite different. So let's see how we do. I also think we ought to actually, the eye pace was a bloody good car. Well, car of the year. Actually, my brother's still got one absolutely adores it. You're saying that the users of those cars are absolute devotees. You know, that was a very, very fine achievement, which, you know, obviously, you know, it will be clipped by this, but we shouldn't forget, you know, that early stage, we were tragedy if that were forgotten. And I suppose it's going to reappear as weimos to some extent. Is that possibly true? This won't be a way, man. Obviously. I was thinking that having an enormous rotating thing on the road would kind of ruin some of the. Having spent so long retaining the purity of the design, I'm not sure I want to go. And later on, radar contraption on the top, and it comes on the side. But you get, you know, yes, autonomous, there will be, we need to have a level of autonomous technology in the car. But actually, this will be. You will want this car because you want to drive it. So again, it's a good example. It's not about, oh, I'm going to buy that because actually, I can take my hands off the wheel. It's understanding what your brand is about. And that's not what our brand is about. We will need to have, you know, we'll need to have a level of technology. We'll need to have great range. We will need to have key levels of, you know, autonomous driving, self-parking, those sorts of things. But I'd rather double down and put our energy into what should a Jaguar be, it should look like nothing else. It should be like a, like a sharpening take of breath in your seat. It looks, you know, and it should drive incredibly. So that's what we put our energies into. I think the challenge you're going to have is, like, if you're not selling cars today, and this comes out, is it September? The car will unveil the car in September. We'll unveil the production car completely in September. This year? Yeah. Yeah. So how on earth do you predict a man? Because I have a feeling that, I mean, all the motoring journalists have been driving it and have blown away. We've been out in a drive. It's incredible. I mean, you're building up a lot of anticipation for this car. How do you predict sales this far out? Very difficult. I mean, we clinic to it. You get an idea of, I guess, demand curves and you can use all sorts of modeling. But they're, you know, they're just indicators more than anything else. You know, we're confident there's a demand out there. I think, I think the sort of particularly now we're getting into the stage we are in terms of talking, being able to talk about the technology and the dynamics, etc. I mean, the nicest problem for me to deal with is we've got demand ahead of supply. Because in any, you know, as anybody involved in any type of luxury and particularly auto is, is you do not want to be pushing volume in this space. So, yeah, I'd much rather kind of say, okay, these are our ambitions. And actually, if, if le atimes get pushed out, that's an incredible, that's a nice problem for me to have. So, actually, in terms of, you know, getting super excited and overcommitting with, you know, with our manufacturing colleagues, that's not the place we're in. And, you know, some things are worth waiting for. And I genuinely hope that's going to be the case with, with our product. And what's the marketing plan? So, what's going to happen between now and September? Yeah. So, a few, a few, so we've got an interesting over the next few weeks and months, we'll be really delving into what we call the spirit of Jackie will drive. So, the kind of story I told you before about what had it they go. So, we will be taking a number of global journeys through that process, drive our reference vehicles, understand what they are and drive the prototype, not the concept car, drive the prototype as you did. So, just really starting. So, again, making sure people understand the link with our provenance, because that's really important to us. So, that'll be for the next few months. We'll have some interesting activations at places like Pebble and Goodwood. And then we'll unveil the current September. Unlike most traditional launch, car launches, they're big on paid. It's a, you know, be a big paid play for us. I think we see ourselves much more actually probably in the shared owner and space as a place for us to actually generate and then paid really is about just making sure that that narrative gets targeted and presented to the right people. So, don't expect kind of a traditional big auto type launch. I think that's not really what Jaguar should be doing. You know, it will all be about being one of one. This is like no other. This is that's the kind of theme of it. But what we need to make sure is that the car is the start. It shouldn't be about the marketing campaign. I think we've generated, we've peaked, let's just fair to say, we've peaked people's interest. I think that's fair. I'm not just saying it on that particular point. But now I think it's about actually the vehicle, the people behind it, how we've arrived at that. That's what really needs to come through through this next phase. And it's just the most exciting thing to do in the world. It really is. I can't wait. I can well imagine. Where is that buyer found? It's obviously a mixture of urban, suburban rural. or all. I think it's really, the dangers, we always do this with this. Yes. So you have your ideal target client and you have your, we're going to conquest them here and we're going to train you. No. And then you go back and you go, well, actually, it was nothing like you thought. It never is, by the way. With any product, I've ever looked at. Yes, because there's a Shopify function which allows you to look at just a random hundred pictures of your customers' houses, just to give an idea of who your customers are. And one of the people who used it sells a very, very premium, you know, effectively farmer's market organic food. And they had this idea of who their customers were. And you can imagine. And about 10% of the customer's houses match the stereotype completely. The rest of them was more or less a random selection of houses. And it always is true. It's a personality question. It's not really about demography. Obviously, you're going to be wealthy on average in this case. I think it's fair to say, but at least as a new buyer. But that's one interesting question. The residuals of electric cars. Is that an, is that a growing issue? The residual value question. I think it, different in different regions. Yeah. In a world where most people buy on some sort of finance program, residuals of crucial in auto. A lot of the, the residuals have been hit. They've been the biggest driver of residuals is demand and supply balance. And the easiest way to destroy residual values is to oversupply the market. And we've seen that time and time again. And we have seen sort of a little bit of boom and bust in terms of some of the demand for some electric vehicles. So the key thing for us in terms of management of that, I guess the most important thing is, go back to the previous question. Don't oversupply the market. Yeah. But there are other things we can do. So in terms of control of your asset in the use market. So if lots of nearly new demonstrators and curses cars are all hitting the market at the same time and all of a sudden there are lots and lots of cars. Well, that's not great for residual values in that depressive. So we've got mechanisms in terms of how we're, how we're planning to control the the, the, the first sale, the second sale, those sorts of things. So there are lots of things you can do. I've learned. Yeah. But the most important thing is, is manage, manage the demand and supply. And one other thing I was talking to Johnny Hornby, you've got quite a lot of hopes for a sort of customisation division. Yeah. Yeah. I think if you think about the, the, the customer I talked about, which is, you know, they're very, you know, they're very confident they're on right. They want to have something that's individual and have a car that stands out. If you, the logical extension of that, they want their Jaguar to be their Jaguar. Yes. So the idea of being able to bespoke aspects of the interior of the exterior to, and to really make it yours is, is it going to be a fundamental part of the Jaguar programme, not from day one, but it will be, I guess, a fast follow. It's also, as soon as you get really beyond a certain price point, it's almost a table stake actually. In terms of being able to, being able to, you know, for these clients, because they want to say, well, actually, I want that colour stitching and I want this interior and on that panel there, I want this material to, and I want to engrave this here. And it's not, it's not just a Jaguar opportunity, it'll be across a number of the other brands, but that sense of tailoring and bespoke is going to be very, very. If you want a fun experience online, the Rolls-Royce specter configurates them on site. You can go crazy, right? Absolutely insane. So I think there, you can have two choices of colour, leather, for the steering wheel alone. But you'll look to that slightly down the line. You'll look to that quite heavily. And I suppose that also solves the problem, because there's a little bit of a problem in the EV market between, for example, the Western concept of luxury and the Eastern. So in the sense that, you know, there's less minimalism, you know, bluntly put, you know. So in China people would want a PlayStation and the car, whereas most most Germans would regard that as incongruous. Or, you know, for a long time the Germans wouldn't even put cup holders in the car, but you know this. It's because most Germans will not allow food or drink in their car, are there any circumstances? So Volkswagen engineers, despite the pleas of their American sales force, were refusing to put cup holders in Volkswagen. When Americans sometimes choose their cars on number of cup holders, it's a dairy-queen bucket. But one of the great things about customization is it allows people in markets who want a little more elaboration, to have a more elaborate car. And then if you want that kind of lucer and minimalism, you can have that as well. So which I think that probably bridges that gap quite well, because I know that that was a problem Audi suffered in the Chinese market, which is, well, you don't get much stuff. Yeah, the process also of bespokeing your car is actually almost as important as the end result itself. That sense of being able to curate, being able to get inside the brand, being able to feel like I'm, you know, I can choose that, I can bespoke that. And what we find is that sense of discovery and their involvement in the creation process is almost as important as actually the end result itself. And I think that's not unique to cars, I think if you look at the car. No, you're right. Luxury yachts and lots of stuff, those themes. So allowing people to feel like they're absolutely on the inside, bringing them on the inside and allowing them to go on that creative journey themselves and explore it is, yeah, it's just as important as the end of the process. Had Neil and Alan podcast just written a book called Beyond Belief and one of the things points he makes is the anticipation of an event actually shapes the reality of the event more than the event itself. So how we think and feel as we look forward to something. And so all the configurator does is it's setting up your expectation or what it's going to be like and shaping your kind of perception. It's a little bit like holiday planning which is part of the pleasure as in the anticipation as well. But you're absolutely right, it does expectation actually has a weird effect on your perception of the ultimate reality. It does, doesn't it? So Rory, if you were launching Jaguar then we'll put you in charge. What would you be doing? Oh, blind me. One thing I do is I'd borrow from James Bond. I'd look for very innovative. I still think there's room for innovation in how we price new cars. Okay. This was a very mischievous suggestion. I was speaking to an audience of very rich people and I pointed out that you can actually lease a Rolls-Roye specter now because it's fully electric and therefore there's no benefit in kind tax for much, much less than it costs to send a child to private school. And I pointed out that now there's vat on private school fees. It's much more tax-efficient to at least the road. You can see a few of the people in the room thinking which of my children do I like to lease? But no, I think there's still scope for innovation in pricing and actually going back to Henry Ford was an extraordinary finance innovator. Nobody ever talks about that now. But the incredible innovation you can see in the early days of Ford in working out finance packages to sell the Model T. I'd also I'd also look at recommendation programs that in other words I think I don't want to give this away. But if you bought one of these cars and you were allowed to recommend one friend for a two-week test drive, only one friend, not everybody you like, just one person. I think that could be an incredibly potent way to sell it. I'm very interested in the extent to which one of the invisible forces in marketing. I was talked about habit and social proof. But when I bought my first electric car, had my brother not bought one first, I wouldn't have had the balls to do it. In other words, I was what you call a tour. I'm the person who's happy to be the second person to do it, not the first. And in the same way I think, I don't think I would have bought my current car, is there hadn't been one of them in the Oxford car park, which gave kind of social proof and reassurance that I wasn't being a complete weirdo. Now, so one of the interesting things to me is the extent to which you could look at network dynamics in terms of the sale of this car. In other words, will there be hot spots of sales where you can concentrate? Now, this never goes down well with finance people who want to sell to everybody all the time immediately. But when Warbuttons went from being a local baker to a national baker, they didn't do it overnight. They did it one region at a time. And so that idea of actually localized concentrated marketing. In other words, if you can get three or four in a local, then you can probably get ten. So there's something there about weirdly, this makes me sound like a sort of 20th century marketer. But the importance of geography, we shouldn't forget it. And so there's something there, I work with a company called Herdify. And they do very interesting work where they will look at what you might call pockets of extraordinary brand growth, where they propose you concentrate your efforts. And that would be something that would really interest me. Because I also suspect that actually, although these people are very, very individualistic, they do tend to sort of live in the same places, go to the same places, attend the same events. So looking at some sort of peer-to-peer system, you know, of recommendation strikes me as potentially quite interesting. I'd be fascinated by your colour choices as well. What's the colour of the colour we got in the background here? London blue. Well done. That's London blue, there you go. And we've had the pink one. We've had reds. Miami pink. Miami pink. London red one. The colours have been, is that a conscious choice? Because they've been very striking. Yeah, I think, you know, the whole brand world that we've created is very colourful. It's, without going into too much detail, it's drawn from the sort of painter's pallets of, you know, red yellow and blue. By which, by the way, thank you for that alone. Because one of the ways in which the car industry has gone backwards since the 1970s, apart from you guys, is that the roads used to be actually quite comfortable. And there was that 1970s banana-sick color, which was weirdly popular. Do you remember that? Ford, there was a kind of weird yellowy beige. I have no idea, it wasn't called banana-sick. I'm sure they had it more. But the roads were actually quite colorful in my childhood. It's consumer choice, right? We all offer a range of colors. And then everybody just can silver, black. I mean, I've never seen that. I mean, I've never seen that over the years, which shows color trends. It's all white, and then it went red. It all went blue, then it all went black. And probably a lot of that will be the herd effect of-- Yeah. --actually, what is everybody else driving? And I remember, vividly, when we launched Range Rover, I was talking to a Range Rover client. And we launched it. It's beautiful. I think it was Salardo Gold, a beautiful color. It was like nothing else. And they actually loved this color. And they were specifying the color. And I caught up with them at the end. And I said, oh, well, I know I bought it in gray. You love the color, but I know. But I always get gray cars. There is, but it's the confidence of the individual terms. There's a Range Rover color, which is a metallic British racing green, I think, if I'm right, which is genuinely the most lovely car color, certainly for a Range Rover I've ever seen. It was just-- it's kind of slightly pearlescent, but in that color. And actually, to any Brit, the fact that most car manufacturers didn't offer green as an option actually pissed me off for all kinds of reasons. By the way, there's a funny reason that, do you know why it's British racing green? It's because for legal reasons, a lot of car racing in the very early days took place in Ireland. And as a gesture to their hosts, the British team would paint their cars green to go over and race in Ireland as a kind of courtesy flag. Isn't that lovely? There you go. That's amazing. Well, I think it feels like a very good place to end, doesn't it? British racing green trivia. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let me just ask you, Rory, what color are you going to order yours in? Talking about-- My daughter would probably veto it, but Miami Pink-- Miami Pink. Yeah, it had to be-- It had to be the-- A whole choice. Yeah. It looks amazing. Actually, actually, two-tone. If your customisation-- We are, actually, two-tone. So I would-- Duo-tone would work. Would work at the bottom. It's beautiful, absolutely. OK. It probably sold me on that. We could do a kind of Welsh flag thing. We could do it in the evening, exactly, this somewhere. Two Welsh buyers. You two Welsh buyers, yes. Well, good luck, Rory. Thank you very much for letting us out on the test day. Nice, right. And genuinely massive credits to you, the engineering and design team, because what you've pulled off is genuinely astonishing. Thank you. I'm absolutely nothing. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks, man. We look forward to September, don't we? Don't be just. So I hope you enjoy that episode of UnSense to CMO as much as I enjoyed making it. Now, by the way, I've got a new newsletter. So if you'd like to get my thoughts on the one thing that I take out from each episode every week, then do subscribe to the one thing newsletter. I'd really appreciate it. Also, I have another podcast. Just launched UnSense to Renegades with the fabulous Corey Marchesoto. She is one of the world's best CMOs. She's an absolute rock star. Every week we pick one topic, spend 20 minutes trying to fix it. So check out that. It's in your feed, UnSense to Renegades. And finally, I want to give a huge thank you to my sponsor, System One. They generously provide so much support for this podcast. It would not happen without them. It's a big thanks and lots of love to System One. I'll see you next time. By the way, one thing you must do with the demonstrator, you know that Ford. You know that I've been literally Ford, not a Ford car. Oh, is it? Where all the cars get stuck. Yes. I've actually been through it. It's not in him, sir. You must just take one through because one of the most ironic things about that is that everybody's absolutely terrified about electric cars in Ford. I'll go through it. Actually, there's not a single case of an electric car failing to make it through that Ford, ironically. All right. No, how deep is it? So it will be varies hugely. That's one of the things. There are times, yeah, don't pick exactly the wrong day. But taking that car with the CMO on through that Ford would be great fun because it's quite funny because seemingly quite capable cars fail there. But Tesla's just ploughed through perfectly happily, which is, of course, you know, everybody on the electric car has this sort of wet weather paranoia. And it's completely the other way around and safe. It's so British, isn't it? I remember very early on people said, can I take my eye-presenter car wash? Yes. [LAUGHTER] You thought of that hand-lovely. Lovely. Where is this Ford? Oh, it's on YouTube. Yeah. You know what it's called, ruffered Ford? I think it's called ruffered Ford. And the point is, if you're going from somewhere in Nottingham, show to somewhere else, it saves you four miles drive. And so people are basically emboldened to take utterly foolish risks in taking vehicles through this Ford, which varies from being an inch deep to literally two feet, three feet, you know, absolutely insane. And some cars will actually start floating and drift away. It's one of the best things on YouTube. It's utterly joyous. Except for the pain of watching people completely destroy their engines. Funnily enough, there's some odd things like minis are surprisingly good, because the air intake was quite high up, I think, if I'm right about that. So what the cars that are actually good in relatively deep water and the cars that are bad are quite surprising. But it's also how you do it. So if you stop, the worst thing can do. Oh, yeah. So you have to create a wake, otherwise, all of the water goes in the exhaust, because if you just keep going, you don't-- Oh, yeah. You're right. Yeah. You have to keep moving. Even with a range over, we're range over, wades up to an earlier meter, which is bonkers. Bonkers, yeah. But you still have to keep going if you're at 800, 800 meters. Otherwise, the water goes back through the exhaust. Yeah, you run-- yeah. So you can't stop. I'll send you the link, because I've just gifted you a really happy weekend on YouTube. Indeed. Watching these cars fail is absolutely wonderful.