I’m not going to lie: yesterday was not my best day, nor our best Morning Dump. It started out fine and then went quickly off the rails. And, sure, it was a privileged sort of bad day where I felt miserable for long chunks of it, and things kept going wrong, but the sun came up today, and everyone has all their limbs.
My goal for this morning was just to take it easy. Just to get the fun news. It’s almost membership renewal time, when we hold our breath to see if all of our original members still like us and keep their memberships rolling. It’s more important than ever this year as the AI-ification of everything has hit our bottom line.
So my instinct, in the morning around this time, is just to keep the vibes good. Avoid politics as best I can in an effort to keep the comments happy and positive. Well, it all went wrong. Sorry.
I already knew I’d write about the reported sacking of JLR design guru Gerry McGovern, which is a delicate thing to discuss and can be as political as you want to make it. New car affordability? No one likes to talk about it, but people are finding it harder to shell out the money car companies are asking for right now.
A solution to that? The White House is proposing further rolling back emissions requirements, which, at least in the near term, is going to do almost nothing to solve the affordability issues, especially in the face of tariffs. There’s a can of worms I’m not tempted to open. And, finally, it does look like the EU is going to roll back its own emission requirements.
I have no safety goggles to put on this morning, and I’ve been informed that the goggles do nothing. Instead, I will shield myself in memes. Specifically, I will use Tim Robinson. He’s becoming something of an unlikely avatar for modern life, playing characters both trapped in a larger system out of their control and then, when offered a little bit of agency, largely flailing helplessly around. I feel that.
Did They Really Escort Gerry McGovern Out Of The Building?
Ok, head right into the lion’s mouth. Let’s do this.
Gerry McGovern is the powerful but controversial JLR designer who built a career around a number of very successful designs. The MG F, the Range Rover Evoque, and, more recently, the new Defender.
None of those designs explain why he’s controversial. It’s the decision to blow up all of Jaguar’s design conventions to make a car that looks like a concrete shithouse, and then dress it up with a bunch of faux transgressive Art Basel artistic nonsense. It’s exactly his style.
Our own Adrian Clarke, who worked with ‘Uncle Gerry’ at JLR, made the point that Jaguar had to do something to rescue the brand from redundancy. Perhaps. I’ve now seen the Type 00 in person and, frankly, it’s not for me. That’s ok! However, the bad feelings it generated were poorly timed for JLR, which was about to face tariffs and then a crippling cyberattack.
So what happened? According to Autocar India, this:
Jaguar Land Rover’s chief creative officer, Gerry McGovern, has departed the company, marking another high-profile exit following CEO Adrian Mardell’s retirement in August this year, a story first broken by Autocar and Autocar India. According to sources, McGovern was sacked and ‘escorted out of the office’, though details remain unconfirmed. An email to the company seeking confirmation of the news went unanswered.
McGovern’s sudden exit comes swiftly after PB Balaji assumed the CEO role on November 17, 2025, succeeding Mardell after a structured transition. McGovern, long regarded as a favourite of the late Ratan Tata, enjoyed strong backing during Tata’s influential tenure at Tata Group, which owns JLR; with Tata’s passing, that key support waned, leaving him more exposed to internal shifts.
No one knows anything right now, and no one is commenting, but take it as a sign that Autocar India was the first to report this. JLR’s parent company, Tata Group, is an Indian company, and when you use an Indian outlet to spill your Tetley, well, you might be sending a message.
This feels coordinated.
Why did this happen? The Brits, who have barely a fleeting concept of a car industry, are all excited about it. Chris Harris impaneled an emergency podcast to discuss it:
The notion discussed in the podcast is that one of two things is happening:
- A personality clash somewhere that McGovern is losing.
- New CEO PB Balaji believes that the company’s direction is wrong.
I think both can be true at the same time. When things are going well, you can absorb the slings and arrows. When things are going poorly, as they surely are for JLR, it’s a lot harder.
When Adrian comes out of his bunker, I’m sure we’ll have more on this.
People Are Having A Hard Time With New Car Prices
Whenever I write about how to time buying a new car, I get a response that’s like: you sure about that? I always try to caveat that, because of the K-Shaped economy, it’s hard for a lot of people to imagine spending any amount of money on a car, let alone the average $50,000 transaction price. Still, I get why people find the idea of buying a new car so foreign right now.
The Detroit Free Press covered these feelings earlier this week, pointing out that many people are shunning new cars at their current prices. Those prices are expected to go up even though, at the beginning of the year, it looked like affordability was starting to improve:
All of this is a sharp U-Turn on the road to prosperity the auto industry was traveling at the start of the year. That was when many analysts forecast modest growth in U.S. auto sales for 2025. Cox Automotive said on Jan. 26 that new vehicles sales would reach 16.3 million by year’s end, stating that “positive economic” conditions combined with “improved buying conditions should lead to a 2%-3% gain” over 2024 total sales.
That was before President Donald Trump, in March, instituted 25% tariffs on imported autos and auto parts, the latter of which are used in many domestic-made vehicles. Trump later implimented 50% tariffs − the taxes paid when a good crosses a border − on aluminum and steel, which are used in most domestically produced cars.
Many automakers held off raising manufacturer’s suggested retail prices due to tariffs. But J.P. Morgan Global Research said in September that the cost to the industry of the combined tariffs on vehicles and parts will be around $41 billion in the first year and automakers and consumers are expected to share the burden equally, with a projected 3% increase to new vehicle price inflation at some point.
The world is a complex place, and tariffs aren’t the only cause of price increases, but they’re a big part of it. It’s possible you think that this pain in the near term is worth it for geopolitical or industrial policy reasons. Hopefully, this will cause some automakers to reach for more affordable models after years of Trimflation.
It’s hard to say, but tariffs are certainly not helping, and at some point, presumably, prices will have to go up.
President Trump To Roll Back Standards To Address Car Affordability
Gee, car prices are going up? Who could be responsible? (OK, Tariffs aren’t the whole issue, but they’re not helping).
I’ve covered in detail before how I think the discussion around the EV tax credit and other policies led to this idea of an “EV Mandate” in the United States that wasn’t exactly real, but also not exactly false, and was all around bad politics.
President Trump, sensing that inflation is not exactly under control and that the automotive market is stumbling a bit, has stepped in to fix it by rolling back stricter emissions policies from the previous administration.
What does that mean? No one is quite sure. Reuters has the scoop, but the details are scarce.
Are car prices higher because of efficiency standards? Yes, and no. The rush to make electric cars was both a response to regulatory requirements and a desire to make Tesla margins, which made it seem like everyone wanted EVs. The scrapping of those plans and the shift in focus back towards hybrids and other cars has a real cost, which at some level has to be paid for.
Is that the main reason for the price of cars going up? I’m not sure that it is, frankly, and I’m also not sure that rolling back standards is going to dramatically cause prices to drop as Bloomberg explains:
Easing fuel economy requirements is unlikely to swiftly lower prices for consumers. Carmakers plan their lineups years in advance, meaning changes stemming from policy shifts take time to appear in showrooms. Tariffs enacted by Trump have also raised automaker costs by billions of dollars.
The move also threatens a policy that would have reduced household fuel spending and slashed planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions. The Biden administration had said the standards would cut gasoline consumption by almost 70 billion gallons through 2050 and save US consumers more than $23 billion in fuel costs. That translates to about $600 in savings over an individual vehicle’s lifetime.
Stellantis’ shares rose as much as 3% after Bloomberg reported the planned announcement, touching a session high. General Motors Co.’s stock erased earlier declines to trade up 1.1% at 3:42 p.m. in New York.
There’s going to be an Oval Office meeting later today, and, at least, Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa will be there. If there’s any company that could benefit, it’s the one with the aging lineup that makes a lot of Jeeps.
Europe Reportedly Going To Tweak 2035 EV Mandate To Include More Hybrids, Biofuels, Et Cetera
If you trust German financial newspaper Handelsblatt, then the EU is legit considering slowing its planned 2035 EV mandate.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz ( CDU ) had demanded in a letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday that the EU should also take “highly efficient” combustion engines into account in its revision of fleet emission limits from 2035 onwards.
When asked whether the EU would allow not only hybrid cars but also conventional combustion engines, Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas told Handelsblatt: “We are open to all technologies.”
The Commissioner added: “Chancellor Merz’s letter was very well received.” The Commission will include “all technological developments” in the new regulation – “including the role of zero-emission and low-emission fuels and advanced biofuels.”
What this actually looks like on paper is hard to say. Frankly, I don’t know, and that’s ok. Not everyone has to know how to do everything. Though it’s becoming increasingly clear that EV mandates aren’t going to work for large chunks of the planet’s populations. [Ed Note: And, even though politics are hard to predict, this still should have been obvious from day 1. At least one company, Toyota, understood it, even in the face of heavy criticism (including from one of our own contributors). -DT].
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
This one is straightforward. It’s the theme song from the criminally underrated sitcom “Detroiters.”
The Big Question
What’s the best JLR design that’s not the E-Type?
Top photo: Netflix, Jaguar
OG 2-door Range Rover. Form perfectly following function.
Look, I’m right about a lot of things that people have zero clue that they even know is going on, and I would say that if you wanted to roll back regulations to make cars cheaper, federal safety regulations are a far, far greater driver of costs than fuel economy and emissions rules are at this point, but, obviously, while he may be an unconventional politician, Trump is still a politician, and there are still some things that all politicians are afraid to touch. Even if its as simple as just allowing reciprocity with EU or UN ECE regulations
haven’t watched the show but, “I understood that reference”
Is there data on what the distribution for purchases looks like? I’m curious if this is a case where the mean/average isn’t a good representation since car prices vary over a wide range and maybe median would be better.
Just browsing some local dealer websites, a 50k MSRP seems to buy a heck of a lot of vehicle and there are a lot of choices in the sub-$30k MSRP for cars and CUVs. Trucks seem to be in the low-40s for stuff on the lot so that’s not great. I didn’t feel like scrolling enough to see mid or full size SUVs so they are probably up there.
Yes, the median new vehicle transaction price is quite a bit lower than the mean.
Media continually quoting the mean when he use median prices / incomes for pretty much everything is rather confusing for many.
I don’t think the E-type is the prettiest Jaguar. The hood is drawn out just a little too long. I prefer the tidier proportions of the D-Type. It’s a *nice* car but not the most beautiful ever made. (Personally, for me, GT40.)
And now that I’ve angered all car enthusiasts everywhere, I also like the XK8/R, and that GT40-era Le Mans car that I *think* was the XJ13? I don’t remember off the top of my head.
“(Personally, for me, GT40.)”
This guy gets it.
You’re not wrong.
I was lucky enough to get up close and personal with a partially disassembled XJ13 at the British Motor Museum a couple of months ago. It is beeeeautiful in a way the E Type never was.
GT 40 in Gulf livery is a wet dream
Trumpian (Kochian) logic is just hilarious. Where do people come to the conclusion that emissions standards are harming affordability? The only part of the market emissions standards are effecting is in the large overpriced inefficient truck space. Affordable vehicles are inherently more efficient compact cars/CUVs in the $25K range. Since nobody is offering those anymore, relaxing standards is a moot point.
This is the same kind of thinking that tax cuts for the rich will somehow bring down average grocery bills.
I imagine it is the costs of said equipment that is placed on the on the vehicles to achieve the standards enacted to push the EV agenda. Remove it and then the costs go down. It effects all cars and trucks honestly. I don’t even like the Trump platform and I agree the costs would not be implemented soon enough to matter. But I would like to be able to look at a used vehicle with 80k and feel like I can keep it going to 150K without catastrophic failures. Variable oil pressure pumps, displacement on demand, over worked high strung turbo motors with plastic everything leaking like sieves. I get it, nobody was fully ready for the demands and I am probably a simpleton, but can I get something that is as reliable and long lasting as say a basic ass 2005 Chevrolet 1500 with a 5.3 v8 and 4l80E transmission, AWD, getting 17-19 mpg?
What would help longevity in allowing the cars to be more reliable while not making emissions worse is reducing the weight due the excessive safety. Unfortunately, that’s not regulatory (besides some of the software nonsense, but that’s minimal weight gain and cost increase, though it does result in more frequently totaled vehicles in crashes, so it could be worthwhile to remove the mandates for some of that trash tech), it’s largely driven by IIHS and most consumers wouldn’t go for a rollback on structural safety. There is an environmental and consumer economic cost to vehicle early retirement due to meeting stringent emission standards with unreliable or shorter-lived tech and reduced operational safety margins for questionable single-percentage improvements. I’d really like them to do something about the worthless rocket launches that pollute more than millions of cars with every light-off, private aviation, and mega yacht emissions, but that effects the .001%, so that won’t happen.
and Cow Farts.
I cut way back on red meat to almost nothing (except if I’m over someone’s house and they made some, I might have a bit), more for the deforestation of the Amazon than farts (I think it’s also the belching that’s a problem), though that’s also part of it, as well as that I’d rather not have cows whacked for me when I have other choices. I really loved red meat.
I was just talking about this the other day. I always felt like we hit the pinnacle of fuel economy, emissions, and powertrain longevity in the late ’90s. My reasoning was that engines were still based on designs that had to put up with carburation, but were efficient and durable because of relatively simple and cheap multiport fuel injection. Emissions were not so bad, everything had a cat and simple EGR, but most powertrains were not overly complex, nor powerful enough to hurt themselves. Most systems were electronically controlled, but mainly stand-alone and independent. A minor failure didn’t take everything down. The mid 2000s I think was a great data point for “safe enough”. We had good, multiple airbags, ABS and good tire technology. Cars were lighter and had better visibility. They could be maneuvered without 360 degree cameras. The lack of a big touch screen and iphones was all the ADAS we needed. The price of a Toyota Corolla has basically doubled since 2005 Is it twice as good at being a transportation appliance?
I’ll add that the removal of a spare tire was for efficiency, that’s one thing that shouldn’t be allowed. It won’t lower prices but dangnabbit I hate it.
I’m probably typical in that I haven’t used a spare tire in my entire driving life, which include inhumane mileage in Los Angeles for several years. Removing it doesn’t make a practical difference to most drivers, IMO.
I don’t know. I consider myself a typical driver and thanks to workers not tying down properly road debris has twice in the past 5 year resulted in the need for tire replacement on the side of the road. The can of fix a flat does nothing for you at 9pm on a Thursday when there is a gaping hole in your side wall.
I would probably say your are atypical. especially in Cali…
I’ve lost 4 unrepairable tires in the last 7 years (and a few more that could be plugged) in my household. And even on a repairable tire not having to wait at the tire shop is worth soooo much time.
I dump off my damaged tire before work, and pick it back up after. Can’t do that without a spare.
You don’t think a hybrid, direct injected, turbo I4 is more expensive to build than a port injected V6?
The goal is to have fuel savings over your ownership of the vehicle more than offset any manufacturing costs.
Additional environmental improvements for clean air (let’s not go back to smoggy-LA, or an era of acid rain) are further side benefits that are harder for individuals to calculate as savings.
Taken to a near-extreme: If I can’t afford as much gas, I drive less. If I can’t afford the car in the first place, I can’t drive at all.
Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps – some politician, probably.
Aren’t we talking about the new purchase prices of cars being too high?
In the midst of ever-increasing vehicle sizes conspiring against efficiencies gained.
Vehicle gets bigger which costs more, and therefore uses a larger engine that uses more fuel and costs more, so we add complexity to the engine which drives up cost to offset the fuel penalty of the larger engine.
Seems like we’ve all gamed the system against ourselves here.
I can’t really speak for the hybrid components, but the main cost in modern engines is in the upfront engineering. Extra components may cost more, but they are a small part of the affordability question. The reason the industry is shovelling half ton trucks out the door is they are so profitable.
When people decry the cost of feeding their families, they are not all talking about prime rib every night (though some probably are). Likewise, people want an affordable reliable way to get to work. Yes many are foolish enough to be upsold into a barge with ventilated seats and a concert hall entertainment system, but for those who wish to forego those things to be able to afford the vehicle, the choices have been taken away. Fuel economy standards didn’t cause that and removing them won’t change that.
eh, I guess it is more along the lines of what is considered affordable. you could get a base Toyota corolla, CVT be damned, for low 20K. I just did a build my own LE in Dark Blue with no added options, but it still has a 8 inch screen with apple car play and Android auto and push button start. $23,920
I admit I overstated when I said nobody is offering options like that. It’s just that the field has shrunk so much. I see lots of base spec Corollas on the roads around me, so the idea is still viable for manufacturers. I’m pretty sure they are built in Canada or the US too, so labour costs are even absorbed. I guess Honda, Mazda, Nissan and H/K are also offering options along these lines. Where are the other mainstream manufactures? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
Maybe the real problem is people expect so much and then complain when it’s expensive. To my original point, dropping consumption/pollution regulations isn’t going to change that.
Don’t forget buying a less efficient vehicle for the ‘cost savings’ just means you’ll surpass those savings very quickly w/ each fill-up.
D-Type
The XJ6 is the Jaguar I grew up seeing, and it was a beautiful car. Any success Jaguar has had since comes from cars that mimic the XJ. But after a while, they all seemed like retromobiles, in the way that a New Beetle mimicked the original Beetle.
And to the other point, the current Jaguar XF starts right at the current ATP for new cars, at $50k. I’m not in the market for a $50k sedan, but if I was, I might take a look at the Jag.
Jaguar never really recovered from the model which was a dressed up Ford Mondeo…
Having said that saw a long, low, XJ V8 in racing green, probably from 1997 or so, the other day and I wanted it.
I think JLR would kill for X-Type sales levels right about now, they sold over 355,000 of those, vs less than 200,000 for the XE
I agree with Adrian that Jaguar needed to do something to reinvent itself. While I love the classic “English-drawing-room, wood and leather” Jaguars, they were tired and pretty irrelevant to most people, and they were selling pretty poorly at the end. Truthfully, Jaguar should have started modernizing itself around the turn of the century, which means the X200 S-Type, X350 XJ and X400 X-Type should never have happened. But my understanding is that Ford in Dearborn had very fixed ideas of how Jaguar should look, and didn’t think Jaguar would be able to compete if it tried to abandon its classic identity for cars as modern as Audi, BMW and Lexus were.
And perhaps there’s some truth to that. The last ten years has seen Jaguar create cars that were perfectly modern-looking, but adequate-to-mediocre in terms of how they compared to competing models. The F-Type and performance versions of the F-PACE have been bright spots, but just about everything else felt like it was a few steps behind the Germans, but not styled distinctively enough to stand out. Where, before, Jaguar was able to hide its comparatively-meager tech and R&D budgets behind antediluvian styling, those inadequacies have been laid bare in the modern era, and customers had fewer reasons to pick a Jaguar.
Meanwhile, Land Rover has soared to new heights during that same time period, using largely the same mechanical hardware and platforms.
Gerry McGovern has a long list of highly successful, enduring designs to his name, as well as some at Rover Group and Peugeot before that. All that is to say that I’m not convinced he took complete leave of his senses and penned the Type 00 unprovoked. I get the sense he was told to do something truly shocking, to go along with the rebrand. And he did, and it was approved at every level. And then, when it backfired spectacularly (because of course it did), he was made to fall upon the sword.
Combining modern and heritage is entirely possible, but often difficult and could come off like a cartoon (see S-Type, X-Type). I think they previously did a good job evolving the XJ6-12-8 and could have continued down that path to have distinctive yet competitive modern vehicle in that class, although I think the third generation 350 and the XE, XF lost the script and just came off as a bulky, heavy looking Lexus/Infinity clones. The GTs fared better.
I’m torn between the X308 and X350 Jaguar XJ as being my favorite JLR design. I can say that besides the F-Type, I haven’t really found any of their more recent designs appealing. A few, in particular the Evoque and the I-Pace, were just downright unappealing.
TBQ: The XJ sedan, up to and including the X350 generation. I just love the fact that they were able to make a large executive sedan *slinky*. I was very close to pulling the trigger on an XJR in the early 2000’s (v8? supercharger? fender vents? Inject it in my veins!) but practicality prevailed, alas.
These days I find myself searching for last-of-the-original-XK 6 cylinder engine models, the 86-92 ones with fuel injection (but not the variants with the horrible square headlights, ugh…)
I’ve had a couple of X350s, and I currently have an X300 (technically, the X305, as it’s the V12). I don’t think the X350 is “slinky” at all. It’s actually very upright, and the proportions are kind of awkward, when you really look at it, and especially as compared to the XJ40/X300/X308 trio.
Yeah they really screwed up the proportions of the hood line, greenhouse and especially the rear end of the car. It looks extremely pinched.
Apparently “near term” = “ass”. 😐
Thank you for acknowledging the weird anti-Toyota screed(s) that were published here assailing them for slow EV pace. They didn’t make sense at the time, as many commenters noted then, and they are absolutely insane to read now given how the world has changed since 2022-23.
I just re-read the article (and comments) linked at the end of this post. Kudos for being the voice of reason then, sir.
Thank you, although I was not alone.
You seem to be the only voice left.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the F-Type. Anyone who says otherwise is lying or owns the car they nominate instead.
I was always impressed with Robert McCall’s Jaguar XJ6 on The Equalizer (Edward Woodward edition). It just screams class. The Jaguar 00 looks like they had a limited pixel budget during the design phase.
Early 1970s XJ6 Coupe hardtop with EU bumpers. Good riddance to Gerry. IMO the emissions rollback could see the return of half ton trucks being N/A V8 powered, so I’m not so mad about that.
This says a lot.
With so much conspiring to push this higher, and little being done to help bring in some reasonable vehicle to the 20-30k range (and, arguably, much being done to actively suppress it)
To say “not helping” is using kid gloves, Matt. They’re directly hindering affordability. It also happens, though, that there are other things also affecting it.
The whole post is tiptoeing around calling the moron a moron, because that would be “political”.
Fact. Politics is about conflicting priorities: wanting to lay the smack-down on China while also wanting to keep things affordable enough to be beloved (at least superficially) and have your supporters re-elected makes tariffs a near-impossible hair to split.
There are plenty of vehicles in the $20,000 to $30,000 range.
Anything from the Trax crossover that cost the median household less than a 1995 Metro to the 2026 hybrid only Toyota Camry.
“more recently, the new Defender.” Andy Wheel (great car designer name), designer of the LR3/4 was actual principle exterior designer on the new Defender…which is probably why its pretty decent. The LR5, was all Gerry
“more recently, the new Defender.” point of fact, Andy Wheel, designer of the LR3/4 was actual principle exterior designer on the new Defender…which is probably why its pretty decent. The LR5, was all Gerry
If he likes his bunker dark with lots of books, then that’s definitely a man after my own heart.
https://i.imgur.com/SzrJUyk.jpg
Now for some music, in hopes of summoning him out of the ether:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9AxGGgrymc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPw7nlluRdc
I believe we need clove cigarettes as well if we are trying to summon the goths
RIP to them (the clove ciggys, hopefully not the goths)
I have some, but laced with other substances… They may or may not be his cup of tea depending upon the substance.
Slashing emissions regs will do nothing for auto affordability and seems much more likely a play to please the diesel brodozer crowd. Absolutely no automaker is going to design, test, build, and sell a new less efficient vehicle in the US now. In all likelihood, the emissions regs will come right back in 2026 or 2028. Furthermore, consumers keep demanded better MPG as evidenced by yesterday’s TMD which noted that hybrid sales keep growing.
Now, if someone like Dodge still had a polluting V8, they could potentially keep selling them under these new regs, but that doesn’t seem likely. It is my understanding that the new Charger was not designed with a V8 in mind.
I’d like to quote the early 31st century philosopher, President Richard M. Nixon, in this event:
“Oh, what a McGovern I’ve been!”
XK140
After the most beauteous E-Type. My favorite JLR would have to be the Land Rover 101 Forward Control.
Gerry was pretty successful at designing soft roading mall crawlers, in my opinion. The Evoque was handsome, and the new Defender is a success within the confines of the obviously mandated softening of the marque. I just don’t know what he was thinking with that Jag, and I’m sure the new management is wondering the same thing