Despite having revealed precisely zero new cars this year, Jaguar has been in the news a lot lately. The British luxury brand spiked most of its lineup in November 2024 in a controversial rebrand, with a funky concept called the Type 00 at its center.
Jaguar revealed a new logo and promised to go all-electric, but the company hadn’t totally shut out its recent past. For the past year, it’s still been building a gas-powered car, its F-Pace SUV. Well, it was still building that car. According to the Jaguar Enthusiasts’ Club, the last F-Pace rolled off the line at its Solihull plant in the United Kingdom this past Friday, December 19, 2025.
If Jaguar’s plans to become an EV luxury powerhouse are set in stone, that means the black F-Pace SVR that rolled off the line is the last gas-powered Jaguar ever. That is, unless Jaguar takes my advice.
I Always Liked The F-Pace
The F-Pace was Jaguar’s first SUV, having first gone on sale in 2016. The Ian Callum design dates back further than that, though, to the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2013, where the original C-X17 concept was shown.
The move from concept to production saw much of the design carry over, resulting in a sleek, athletic crossover that—in this writer’s opinion—outshined anything from Germany on the looks front.
Having driven a few F-Paces, it wasn’t just looks that made this SUV appealing. The larger footprint and taller ride height didn’t really take away from the agility you’d normally expect from a vehicle with a prancing cat on the trunklid.
In its base form, the F-Pace was a legitimately enjoyable car, and definitely more fun than a Mercedes GLC, Audi Q5, or BMW X3. To get something more exciting, you’d have to spend a bunch more for a Porsche Macan, or risk it all on the reliability front with an Alfa Romeo Stelvio.
The F-Pace SVR, meanwhile, with its 550-horsepower supercharged V8, was a truly silly performance SUV. It was smaller and lighter than its Range Rover Sport SV sibling, but made the same power and the same amazing sounds.
According to the Jaguar Enthusiasts’ Club, it was an F-Pace SVR that was chosen to be the final car to roll off the line, painted in black.
Let’s Be Realistic Here
By all accounts, that black SVR will be the very last gas-powered Jaguar ever. The brand has promised to shift to an all-electric lineup, with a production version of the Type 00 leading the way. I think that’s a bad decision.
Like my colleague David, I believe that electric cars are, in fact, the future. There’s no stopping them, and one day, I believe the vast majority of cars on the road will be solely powered by batteries. But the future isn’t now. People don’t want EVs right now; they want hybrids. Jaguar is walking itself into a market that doesn’t exist yet.
The company isn’t unaware of this fact. Jaguar’s U.S. boss Brandon Baldassari told me as such back in August, when he revealed to me the brand has “very realistic volume expectations” for the Type 00 when it goes on sale. It’s worth noting that this was before the U.S. ended its federal tax credit for EVs and the EU backed down on its gas engine ban, so those expectations might be even more “realistic” now.
Leaning fully into the EV space brackets Jaguar into a realm that’s currently struggling. Sales were down a massive 40% last month, and without serious government intervention in the form of regulations, that number likely won’t improve any time soon.
Surely, Jaguar has more products in the pipeline after the Type 00. If they want to be anything more than a hyper-niche competitor to the Cadillac Celestiq, my advice would be to make sure those products have gas-powered range extenders. Scout Motors, with its range-extended EVs, and Ford, with its range-extended F-150 Lightning, have already figured this out. People want hybrids, not EVs. Brands like Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian are too stubborn to follow this concept, but Jaguar still has a chance to make the right decision.
If it’s smart, the F-Pace won’t be the last gas-powered Jaguar, and this send-off will be a small footnote in the company’s long, illustrious history.
Top graphic image: Jaguar
EV’s are definitely the future. Lithium-Ion battery packs won’t be the energy storage solution used however. Heavy, slow to charge, volatile, and poor performance in extreme temperature. Until solid-state, sodium-ion, lithium-sulfur, graphene or some other composition is ready for commercial sale EV market share will be flat.
Or some atmospheric CO2 to hydrocarbon process solves the political issues. In a past life some folks down the hall were working on sodium – sulfur batteries. Intended for a motor vehicle. Product liability lawyers had a cow over the 600 F molten goo…
reminds me of the think citycar
Jaguar has made it very plain that they want to be a niche competitor to cars like the Celestiq. I believe that they are delusional, but that is the market they are pursuing.
Their target market doesn’t care about the reliability issues. They will take one of their other cars when the OO (pronounced “uh oh!”) is in the workshop. And they will not be taking 1000 plus mile road trips. Or so JLR seems to think.
Our current car is an XE diesel. It is really a nice ride. It can drive the 250 miles to Winterpeg and back in subzero on a single tank. No need to pay Canadian prices for diesel. Or to the Twin Cities, and ditto the taxes MN charges.
I have also driven about 1000 miles on a F Pace loaner that I was given when the dealership couldn’t diagnose the issue with the smog system that was shutting down the XE.
I thought it was a horrible road car, and I didn’t want to risk off road what with the tires fitted and the obviously fragile body.
But I don’t like any of the SUVs I have driven as road trip cars.
30 years ago I aspired to own a Jag one day.
I know they essentially had nothing to lose, but it’s been a year and, every time this rebrand and the Type 00 comes up, I still ask myself “what on earth were they thinking?!?”.
Jaguar just needs to shuffle off this mortal realm and join the other brands past their sell-by date in automotive Valhalla. They had a pretty amazing run, but it’s time to call it a day.
I have a question: how is “Type 00” pronounced? Type Oh-Oh? Type Aught-Aught? Type Zero-Zero? All of those seem very stupid.
Maybe I’ll just call it the Typo.
British, so Type Double Oh
*sigh*
We knew this change was coming but it’s still disappointing to hear about it.
My daily is an F-Pace and I absolutely love it. Right now there are no plans to replace it, which is good: I have no idea what might be next. 🙁
I’m in Europe for the first time. Taxis and Uber are electric. Tons of private EVs Hybrid makes sense for the US right now but electric in the future is achievable.
But nothing changes my opinion that thr Type 00 is ugly as shit.
I like the F-Pace too. Hell, I’ve liked most of their designs over the years (this new one is an exception). One would think it would be possible to keep making some of the same designs and exporting them to the US at least…
Jaguar come in with a bang go out with a thud. Now Jaguar lost their way with ICE with poor design, they can never be a marque high end because they can’t build a decent vehicle. But if they have any closed factories with working equipment they should fire them back up, find a way to hire sober skilled employees and start trying to save the brand.
“very realistic volume expectations” for the Type 00 when it goes on sale”
Like 00
“You haven’t ignored the last of me”
– Zapp Brannigan
I hear you, but I take issue with your statement that “consumers don”t want electric cars”. Its not that what you’re saying isn’t correct its just that, initially, the idea of making EVs was never about ” hey lets spend billions and develop a new powertrain system.” It was never about choice. It was always about trying to slow down or fix climate change. It was a multi continent mandate that is now being re pealed by the current US administration (because they don’t believe in science and love the idea of energy costing more) and being relaxed by the EU. As with all new technologies its still early in EV technology and there are only a few cars that may be close to acceptable in terms of price, range, charging infrastructure and performance.,
If you can’t sell them with billions in subsidies you can’t sell them without billions in subsidies. Everyone but China is running for the lifeboats. No country has a decent electric grid for current needs a bunch of EVs will be lawn ornaments, ugly lawn ornaments
I don’t give a rats ass what kind of drive engine powers my car. What I do want is cost effective transportation.
That will allow me to travel 400 miles in temperatures below 0 F and above 95 F without having to stop to refuel.
And I don’t want to own two motor vehicles. From what I see, no current or foreseeable BEV can meet those two very plain requirements.
Blame it on a couple of English gents: Newton and Smith. Newton, because any BEV is carrying on average a 40% empty battery with a considerable mass.
Smith, because hydrocarbon fuels are very energy dense, and they are relatively inexpensive compared to electricity delivered to my vehicle. Add a comparable tax to motor vehicle fuel taxes and see what happens.
Solar and wind power are pipe dreams. Adding hydro capacity in the US is not feasible due to environmental howling. Same with nuclear fission. And fusion is now 25 years away, which is better than the 40 years when I was 45 years younger.
The current administration can be blamed for a lot(and they should be) but they had nothing to doe with the EU altering their original 2035 mandate. They smartly added flexibility for hybrids, range extenders and e-fuel and bio-fuels.
Counterpoint: those eliminated subsidies didn’t apply to a vehicle as expensive as this Jag, and the EU’s slight backing down on the ICE ban doesn’t actually do very much. The ICEs that Jags had that were actually interesting or worthwhile were large displacement supercharged V8s, which is a fairly difficult configuration for emissions.
Tata needs a brand that can sell vehicles with the sloping rooflines needed for a viable EV, which they can’t really do with Range Rovers since their whole aesthetic is based around their boxiness which kills EV range. Jag is the brand that can sell sedans and coupe SUVs, while LR/RR can eventually make PHEV/EREVs after 2030 (they’ll wait for some mature ZF solution since JLR doesn’t seem to be much of a powertrain innovator).
Remember too – Jaguar had a full-sized, fully-developed EV replacement for the XJ that they put a stop on at the last moment – and have replaced it with nothing.
Why outright cancellation? Why not delay and update, then roll it out?
Even if it was bad and ugly – They would have had something to sell.
If you lose money on every sale it’s smarter to not sell any.
Getting a “fully-developed” car to full scale production involves an enormous commitment of resources for production equipment, staff, supplier network, marketing. If it’s clear it’ll be a flop better cut your loses. You don’t want something to just occupy factory floors if it’s ultimately not a money maker. And this is before considering their whole brand pivot, with which that XJ no longer fits.
If I may interject the worst thing about British cars were the electrical system. Hey I know let’s build a car that everything runs on an electrical system. The Brits are bad at that.
Okay let’s put India in charge of them they don’t have electrical system problems.
No because most of the country doesn’t have electricity.
In other words it ain’t gonna work
“People don’t want EVs right now; they want hybrids.”
No.
90% of people want affordable cars which are cheap and easy to use, fuel and maintain.
Hybrids are right for some people – but not all – because they are inherently more complex than necessary.
Small and medium EV’s – like those from China, some European manufacturers, and even a couple US companies – fit the bill for a lot of others who can easily and cheaply recharge at home.
People are only bypassing EVs because they can’t charge at home, they’re too expensive, their use case doesn’t support an EV, they don’t like the politics of the CEO, or they’re being told that EVs will emasculate them/are part of a communist plot to take over their lives/nobody wants them.
And to your point on hybrid complexity, I think there are also steps taking place — elimination of transmissions and gentle-cycle ICE engines, for example — that might end up mitigating some of the long-term risk in the system. I still fundamentally don’t love the idea of semi-redundant powertrains, but a lot of them have a pretty solid track record (usually companies rhyming with Tonda or Hoyota).
I haven’t heard anything about EVs being emasculating or hippie-ish in many years now. I think Musk, with all of his dangerous oddities — has made them very palatable to almost everyone over the past 10-15 years.
If not for politics, I think there’s a huge win to be had (if only we had a deal-making president!) where we could import “dumb” Chinese EVs for final assembly here in the US. There is almost definitely a win-win that could be found with the right combination of security and labor arrangements.
You make the assumption that the PedoFelon wants to do anything good for the country or other people.
The only way we’d get an EV deal with Chinese manufacturers would be if it was named “The Trump”, was painted gold, and fed a stream of cash into his pockets.
The big problem is even if they design a good looking EV, make it charge at home, make it affordable as an ICE without subsidies, upgrade the country’s electric grid to handle the doubling of demand without skyhigh electric bills we are already seeing the trade in value of a EV will be zero unless you can replace the whole system cheaper because then you have a new propulsion system with ten years old interior and everything else.
When you talk price people are thinking sales price but with ICE you have resale value as seen by the demand during COVID. EVs aren’t giving resale value so an additional 10K lost.
I don’t think Jaguar would build a good hybrid anyway. Many automakers try due to various emission requirements but how many are actually good outside Japan?
Some fancy boys were willing to put up with Jaguar ICE vehicles for the clout but not enough, apparently. The EV rollout was a mother cluster of the highest order but it didn’t have to be.
Imagine if they actually came out with something close to Ian Callum’s E-Type redesign from last spring. People would be singing a totally different tune.
Jaguar would actually do better sending crews out around the world to buy up worn out old Series I, II and III XJs, shipping them back to England to be remanufactured with Lucid RWD drivetrains, and resold.
How delighful would it be to have a “new” Series II XJ-C EV with plug-points on each rear fender?
It could be something out of “Gattica”…
Agreed Jaguar coming out with an EV only line up is like Omaha Steaks ditching tasty red meat and coming out with veggie steaks and burgers. Even if the product is good your selling it to the wrong market
I agree, all the European automakers seem hellbent on making ‘motor taped to an automatic’ type parallel hybrids. These admittedly have a more natural driving experience with conventional gearshifts rather than CVT-like drone, but in 2025 we can easily program any hybrid system to imitate the sound of conventional gearshifts. These 8-speed parallel hybrids are kind of the worst to engineer, retaining all of the complexity of a conventional auto and adding the hybrid system on top, while the programming & tuning work is likely the most difficult to get right out of all the types. My guess is that this has something to do with Europeans being too accustomed to manual transmissions.
Outside Japan, it’s the Americans with Ford and GM that have good hybrid implementations, but GM abandoned theirs while Ford continues to use the Toyota-style powersplit hybrid system (which Ford helped invent) for their smaller vehicles (Lincoln Nautilus and lower); they use a parallel hybrid for large small-battery hybrids like the F-150 Powerboost since only the conventional automatic is capable of the required high tow ratings, unless you go for an EREV setup like Ram, Scout, and now Ford.
In China, where PHEVs are more popular than HEVs, most of the brands use a Honda-like series-parallel hybrid transmission with 1-3 gears or an EREV.
RIP Jaguar, you had a good run.
You know Powerball is up to $1.6 billion I think you could get Jaguar Land Rover for half that.
An SUV being the last gas powered Jaguar is sad
Amen Brother
So does the US government have to bail them out now, or is that someone else’s job?
UK and/or Indian government.
Good grief, being in the same league as the the Celestiq is a dubious honour.
From what I have seen of the 00 in photos, it’s a great deal better looking than the Celestiq. But the bar wasn’t set very high.
I lean towards them being equally ugly – just in different ways.
Yes but the Jaguar crowd much like the Rolls Royce crowd has no interest in EVs.
I mean… they’re EV brands from conception. Why would they start making hybrids?
Yeah, this is like saying people aren’t eating at Red Lobster anymore – so they should start offering Hamburgers.
Or they should buy some farms, start raising cows, learning how to feed and care for them, butcher them, figure out some recipes, and then maybe we can give people an alternative to that pesky seafood!
Or see if they can make a deal to buy partly or fully cooked burger patties from McDonald’s or Burger King that they could put on their own rolls and serve with their own sides.
Although to step out of the metaphor for a moment, a Cheddar Bay Biscuit burger would be tempting. And to sort of step back in, during the last few years before selling it off to a supplier, Darden converted as many Red Lobsters as they could into Olive Gardens. I’m sure the price of pasta in bulk relative to seafood had a lot to do with that.
Oh those Cheddar Bay Biscuits…
Red Lobster may have never been great, but the biscuits are on the Mount Rushmore of chain restaurant complimentary breads. Which… I suppose is something.
That delicious tasty covered in butter seafood? Ugghhbb
Maybe soy burgers. People do cross shop seafood and red meat.
Because no one wants EVs? Just guessing
This is like when the last Pontiac to roll off the assembly line was a white G6.
I always feel like they do that on purpose, to feign nonchalance about canceling something they know is good. Like the hollowness when they invariably promise oh there’s absolutely something better coming you’re going to love even more (e.g. the Ford Fiesta’s demise).
Was Pontiac (not including the Vibe) really all that good in it’s last 10-15 years?
There was the Solstice, and of course the G8.
As good as anything else GM had a hand in
I like to think in the multiverse somewhere, Pontiac survives as a functional captive import division for cars – muscle cars from Australia and other stuff from Opel (including moving the cars from Buick to Pontiac) – as the rest of GM sells crossovers, SUVs, and trucks.
Wasn’t there also a GXP version of the G6 that was actually a hoot? I seem to remember a hit or miss article recently.
The Solstice was actually kind of meh compared to the Miata, even if it was faster it was not nearly as good a car, and the G8 wasn’t a Pontiac.
Hard to be outraged about the death of a brand when it’s final offering is a me-too luxury(ish) crossover.
See you in 5 years when they go belly up and someone else buys the name for their project.
I’m guessing Honda. It would give them a global prestige brand and free Acura to fully concentrate on being Buick but Japanese.
I think sooner or later the brand is destroyed as no one under 30 now remembers a decent or exciting JAG. And no one under 30 can drive a stick or is interested in cars. Or at least not at the requiset numbers.
Honda could change the name to something that sounds prestigious, but without the negative connotations of “Jaguar”…
…something vaguely British…
…perhaps “Sterling”?