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
It seems like today is going better for you. Good, I’m glad for that.
If I had to take a Jag it would be a 60’s S-Type.
I agree with most of your thesis on the subjects of tariffs, inflation and EV mandates. Like you I am going to avoid the politics subject as my ancient CV and nervous systems could use a break from the chaos.
The word coming from the Offal Office is that affordability is a Democratic scam. So why bother trying to do anything to increase it?
> Offal Office
I loled.
Oh, stop making sense!
But seriously, can anyone present a reasonable and fact-based argument against unified emissions standards? Even flat-earthers believe the continents share the atmosphere. As for safety standards, Europe and the North American highways have nearly identical top speeds and similar roadway infrastructure.
I’ve some first-hand experience driving in Africa and South America, and I could see regulators on both continents wanting higher collision safety standards based on the roadways and more casual adherence to driving rules. That said, driving through the heart of Paris on a Friday afternoon probably reduced my lifespan a month or two.
I think it comes down to stupid human nature of not wanting to accept another system. Look at how we cling onto the Imperial system for no good reason!
I could understand if more poor countries wouldn’t want to be part of these standards, but the EU, US, Canada, Japan, Korea and Australia should all be in one unified zone for safety and emissions.
Ultimately as long as the average consumer is convinced by marketing and believes they want and need an SUV full of computerized garbage, that is what the manufacturers will make and sell. It will probably take a recession for the average person to even want more affordable cars, though with how things have gone that might just normalize longer loan terms.
Adage from my car geek cousin in CA: You can buy a lot of gasoline with $10 to $20,000 dollars. Not exactly the best environmental advice, but I get his point and had him ‘audit’ the 99 Lexus I bought from CA. 17/18 mpg’s? OK: paid for, 220,000 miles, bought it at 164K, still no rust after 6 years in Wisconsin, starts, stops, and has heated seats and Toyota’s indestructible 6. (The number is at $3.50/gallon about 51,000 miles of petrol for 10K.).
Moral of the story? buy a used Toyota or Lexus from CA.
Fun tidbit: the efficiency rules just relaxed were helping to keep gasoline prices down. Now that they’re gone and US automakers can V8 all the things, gasoline demand is going to increase. And what happens when demand increases? You got it, prices go up! So not only did we make vehicles more expensive with import taxes on parts, we also made using them more expensive! Heckuva job! Are we tired of all the winning?
I have to go with the original Series 1 XJ based on that design’s staying power. It stayed pretty true to form from the ’68 Series 1 up through ’87 with the Series 3, but the overall look then continued all the way up to 2009.
To myself that’s what a Jaguar was, a really nice-looking sedan. I liked the looks of the others (in particluar the XJS) a great deal as well, but seeing those series 1, 2, and 3 XJs as a kid and having the chance to help restore a pretty rough Series 1 in the early 90’s really hooked me.
I finally ended up buying an ’82 XJ6 around 11 years ago and it’s been great fun, although I did cheat a bit as it has a 350 Chevy/700r4 setup transplanted out of an ’87 Camaro. Objectively, it doesn’t really do anything in particular all that well except looking cool with it’s wire-wheels and classic Jaguar design, but that’s been enough to enjoy the 25,000 miles I’ve spent behind its wheel so far.
Jaguar just went way too hard at it. Completely ignoring the looks of the 00 or whatever it’s called, all it needed to be was a concept car previewing the future styling direction of their lineup. Instead, they axed every single vehicle they produced and hung their entire future on 1 (one) boutique EV. Criminally stupid thing to do.
They adopted the Silicon Valley approach of moving fast and breaking things, but forgot to realize that that approach requires you to have a long-term plan at the end of the day.
Late-70s XJ sedan is the second-prettiest Jag. About a million years ago, I almost bought one with a Chevy 350 in it.
Is rolling back emission laws supposed to roll back the “Light Truck” loophole that resulted in small cars getting progressively larger and more expensive?
That’s the part that caught my eye in Automotive News’ report:
I would love it if this meant we got Reasonable Vehicles of Reasonable Size With No Lift again, but I have too little faith in humanity to think that anything good would happen, ever.
I’m not sure the car companies operating in the us want to make a cheap car. Even if they end all the regulations you still have to convince someone to build something cheap and they have to be convinced it will sell. They seem convinced that $30k is the new $20k before that they got to $10k then jumped up a few $k every few years.
I’ve always found it funny the Chinese treat everything like a war but in production of a peoples vehicle it may make sense or at least some kind of government sanctioned scheme to reduce costs like the japanese did with kei or Chinese have done with new energy. We have the tax carve out for heavy trucks. Maybe there needs to be one with small cheap vehicles too.
The car company’s want to sell cars. The stock holders want every one of those cars sold to produce F-350 King Ranch profits.
GM sold 200K Trax last year – starts at $22K
Toyota sold 230K Corollas last year – starts at $23K
Kia / Hyundai sold ~280K K4 / Elantra – start at $22K
Nissan sold 153K Sentras – starts at $22K
When people buy cheap cars manufacturers make them
Basically every car that succeeded the E-Type looks better than the E-Type. Never understood the extremely outspoken praise it gets.
the XJS is hot garbage… fight me. But otherwise, I generally agree, the E-Type is good, but it’s not mind blowing… or at least not “The most beautiful car ever built” as most often drone on about.
> XJS abuse
Duel at dawn.
Thank you. It looks like either a penis or a tongue depending on whether it’s a coupe or convertible and the Series III cars are comically ugly.
The Ambiguously Gay Duo would like a word….
This should be your inspiration, Jaguar:
https://www.designboom.com/twitterimages/uploads/2021/09/rare-1993-jaguar-xj220-sells-for-record-breaking-460000-designboom-1200.jpg
This is the best photo of one I’ve ever seen.
Huh, no idea what is being referred to regarding yesterday’s dump? Seemed fine to me? Granted I guess the issue may just be general stuff versus the dump itself. Maybe The Autopian’s new deal with CornCob TV fell through? Either way, hope things are alright.
I’m going to be a totally crazy, unhinged person and choose the X-Type. That’s right, I like the X-Type, I said it. The wagon in green is cool.
Our show was supposed to go on after Coffin Flop!
I feel like Torch NV200 Monologues would be one of the few things that could follow up body after body busting out of shit wood and hitting pavement.
They’re saying “Coffin Flop’s not a show! It’s just hours and hours of footage of people falling out of coffins at funerals.”
Seriously, thanks for all the Tim Robinson today, which kept me smiling even while reading bad news.
The new Defender is awful too so I’m glad he left. Nothing good was coming out of that guy’s brain. It’s like if BMW realized Bangle was a phony before he could come up with the Bangle Butt and the E65.
I was sort of thinking a North Korean firing
Car affordability is because everyone wants everything. Well, features cost money.
The faux deviated stitching on the padded not-leather dash in your (prior gen) Toyota RAV 4? It’s more expensive to give you that fakery that gives the appearance it’s real. Panoramic moonroof options in everything? Customizable LED accent lighting? Starfield roofs? Heated and cooled everything — do we have cooled steering wheels yet? Power everything? 19-23-inch wheels on everything? Dual/quad exhausts on economy cars?
I get it. People want things. However, things cost money. Can’t have both.
I’d rather automakers make a basic car that focuses on the things that matter:
A DURABLE interior, that looks fine and won’t squeakGREAT supportive seats (with lumbar) even if mostly manually adjustableGREAT ergonomicsGREAT basic crash structure and airbagsA SIMPLE, reliable engine (175HP, 160lb-ft for compact CUV?) and transaxleBASIC cabin storage, cup holders and cargo areaOn 16 or 17-inch steel wheels standard, with four wheel disc brakesAnything beyond that you don’t NEED, you WANT. Of course, the manufacturers want you to spend on those wants. OMG margin fodder, amirite?
EDIT: For the record, no issue with hybrid powertrain options. Though if we want a basic, less expensive car, that’ll be in the next trim up.
Slate called. $30k these days is what $20k was fifteen years ago.
We’ll see what they ultimately deliver.
Skoda already does fairly simple cars. People seem to be fine with them.
If some larger manufacturer wanted to be truly daring, they’d try to shake things up by just going for everyone’s throat with such a move. Though they’re too addicted to the comfy margins of slathering trucks in mediocre “luxury.”
Mercedes 280 fits that spec to a T imo.
When journalists/bloggers review cars they bitch and complain about not having every single feature or luxury surface. Frankly for a while now they have started the entitlement.
I always liked the xjs even as a kid I thought it had class. It always seemed like interesting people drove them when they were being produced.
I thought jag was closed for business.
I’d rank the E-Type behind the D-Types, C-Type, XKSS, XK120, XK140, SS90/100, XJ13, XJ6 coupe and sedan, XJR15, and F-Type. It’s got a weird windshield, sits on tippie toe tires, and with it’s long stretch of front sadly lacking in curved profile, its shape resembles a dick. Love the rear, though, especially the roadster.
Is the automotive industry in a bubble right now? The economy is going to crap and companies keep thinking that $50k for a basic family hauler is affordable.
Eventually the bubble will bust and manufacturers will be throwing tens of thousands of dollars on the table to move existing inventory.
When we had the recession in 2008, most manufacturers selling in the USA at least had some affordable compact and subcompact sedans, hatches and SUV’s that were still affordable at the time.
However, in 2025, many companies have stopped delivering many options that are below even $30k. And if the tariffs continue to stick around that means companies can’t just badge engineer a cheap import and sell it here.
If that plays out, it could decimate the players in the industry that aren’t prepared for it. Ford, GM and the US operations of Stellantis could be in big trouble if they don’t have vehicles for sale that are widely economical. I guarantee you’ll see de-contenting to attempt to get prices lower, but that isn’t the same as having a volume seller that’s already on the lots with an affordable price tag.
I liked the F-Type, but they have had many beautiful models over the years.
Happy December 3rd everyone!
I don’t like the new Jag design he did, but seeing a few concepts that have followed it, he sure seems to have called (or started) a design trend that a number of luxury OEMs are going for. Will be interesting to see where he lands.
If things were that bad at the autopian workplace, have you considered the Carber Hot Dog Vac?
Probably because my Dad bought one when I was a kid, but I’ve always loved the look of the XJS.