Are Jaguar and Land Rover living slow death after Tata purchase?

Recently Tata Motors of India purchase legendary car marquees like land rover and jaguar. Tata motors have a lot to gain from this deal as they will have tomorrow’s technology today buy just buying these brands and introduce their technology to Indian car market without going through tedious process of r&d. well that is what Tata thought of before buying these brands. What will happen to those brands when current technologies go out of date and time comes to developing new ones? Are they going to be able to develop new technology at the pace of their competitors like Bmw, Audi, Mb, and even Gm? Are those great brands eventually die or left out of race? What does future holds for these brands and Tata?

Maverick2020 - 7/31/2008 10:11:21 AM

+4 Boost

I think it's a little too early to tell what Tata will do or potentially screw up.

Jaguar is not going to be Mercedes or have huge volumes. Instead it should be positioned as a premium niche brand. They should be thinking of worldwide volumes of 200-250,000 instead of the million that was once their goal.

Land Rover, the same. Very focused, very high quality, very aesthetically driven AWD and SUV offerings. But not aiming for world domination, just the finest.

drake0707 - 7/31/2008 11:28:55 AM

+4 Boost

Land rover, high quality? The worse reports for reliability out of any premium sport utility. Tell me maverick, where do you get your information? Next might I hear that the AMC should still be making highline cars?

Maverick2020 - 7/31/2008 11:41:55 AM

+1 Boost

The qualities I listed are what Land Rover should be shooting for. JDPA IQS studies currently rank LR very low.

However, my own experience owning 2 Range Rovers, they were flawless--have not had a major problem. Can't say that about other high-line vehicles I have owned.

woood - 7/31/2008 11:19:17 AM

+4 Boost

Definitely not.

rhp1462 - 7/31/2008 11:39:40 AM

0 Boost

Well we are not talking about their present we are discusing their future.

rhp1462 - 7/31/2008 11:44:27 AM

-1 Boost

well there are talks about hummer and as far as i know they are not as global as land rover so if tata does buy it, they better make it global so they can reap profits out of it as hummer has to be imported indipendently in many euro-asian countries. if they buy it and sell it locally than its just another docter checking on dying dog.

cdoke - 7/31/2008 12:49:17 PM

+2 Boost

Simply- No. Tata has already budgeted $2 billion for the company, and it won't need such help forever. Combined the business is profitable. Second, many of the technologies in cars are not actually developed by the car maker. The biggest example is probably transmissions. Jaguar does not make transmissions, they buy them from ZF to be specific. I could go on...

As a note in regard to some previous posts, Jaguar intends to sell far less than 250,000 cars per year; they intend to sell 80,000 worldwide per annum. In fact, much of the problem with today's Jaguar is the result of them trying to sell that many cars. Oh, and yes, there are no plans to replace the X-type (thank goodness)

rhp1462 - 7/31/2008 12:51:29 PM

+1 Boost

thanks for the comment. u made a really good point. something new i learnt.

EL34 - 7/31/2008 1:29:22 PM

+1 Boost

Are Jaguar and Land Rover living slow death after Tata purchase?

no.

ubercool - 7/31/2008 2:35:18 PM

+1 Boost

Jag and LR will do very well under Tata.

iepurilah - 7/31/2008 2:51:31 PM

+2 Boost

If you ask me, Ford did a bad deal selling these two and I think Tata will manage them well.

xj13 - 7/31/2008 8:30:18 PM

+1 Boost

NO,no,no and NO.

Tour18 - 8/2/2008 10:19:36 AM

+1 Boost

Obviously the Asian business community can plan and execute business enterprise much better than those in the West.

It would not surprise me to see wonderful things come from Jaguar. I have never owned one, but...

EnnNorak - 8/7/2008 7:07:07 PM

0 Boost

I never owned a Jag either because it was always overpriced and I look for value like Audi's A6 or the VW Passat that I recently bought. I must admit though that I came real close to buying an XKE half a century ago when that car was the cat's meow (pun intended).