Jaguar boss says it has shown ‘fearless creativity’ with new electric car

Jaguar’s design boss has said the car brand has shown “fearless creativity” as he unveiled a much-hyped electric vehicle that had attracted an online backlash over its unusual marketing campaign.Gerry McGovern, who is in charge of design for Jaguar’s parent company, told a launch event on Monday in Miami: “Some may love it now, some may love it later and some may never love it. That’s what fearless creativity does.”The British brand revealed the new concept car, the Type 00 (pronounced “zero zero”), to set the tone for a relaunch that represents a change of strategy.A production-ready version, a four-door Grand Tourer, is due to be revealed in late 2025, with sales expected to start in 2026

British food exports to EU ‘have fallen £3bn a year since Brexit’

Exports of British food to the EU have dropped by nearly £3bn a year since Brexit, a trade thinktank has said, with new physical and documentary checks at the border complicating trade.A report by the Centre of Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP) has found that the export of UK food and agricultural products to the EU has fallen by more than 16% on average across the three years since Britain left the single market, when compared with the three years before the exit.The drop equates to £2.8bn fewer exports a year travelling to the bloc from Britain.The report said that, while the fall coincided with events such as the fallout from the Covid pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, trade flows between the UK and EU, particularly the export of British goods, had shown no signs of returning to previous levels

NatWest on fast trajectory back to private ownership, boss says

The chief executive of NatWest has said the bailed-out bank is on a “fast trajectory to private ownership”, with the government likely to fully exit its stake within the first half of 2025.Paul Thwaite said it would be a symbolic moment for NatWest Group staff and the wider banking sector, allowing the industry to close another chapter of the fallout from the 2008 banking crash.The Treasury spent nearly £46bn to bail out NatWest, then known as Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), at the height of the financial crisis. The resulting nationalisation left taxpayers owning about 84% of the lender.A rapid sell-off – and share buy-backs by NatWest – over the past year has cut the remaining public stake in NatWest from 38% in December 2023 to just under 11% today

‘Too big of a departure?’: the experts’ verdict on Jaguar’s electric car launch

Jaguar has finally unveiled its much-hyped Type 00 electric car at a launch at Miami Art Week. A teaser video for the marketing campaign released on social media a fortnight ago had split opinion. Here, industry experts give their verdict on the car, its launch and marketing.Former marketing director at Honda, now chief executive of Formula E, in which Jaguar competesI’ve recently owned a Jaguar iPace. A really good car, but it didn’t make me smile

Stellantis’s Carlos Tavares: the hard-driving boss ejected from global carmaker

Carlos Tavares is known as one of the most outspoken leaders in the car industry. Among the executive class, the former Stellantis chief executive is also considered to be one of the best drivers of its products on the track.He used a similarly hard-driving style in the board room, constantly pushing his managers and factories to deliver bigger profits. Yet after his enforced departure from the global carmaker, it appears Tavares may have been better off applying the brakes than charging ahead.Stellantis announced Tavares’s resignation with immediate effect on Sunday

Jaguar unveils much-hyped electric car after online leak

Jaguar unveiled its much-hyped electric concept car in Miami on Monday, just hours after leaked images of the rebranded vehicle were circulated online.Early online reaction suggests the concept car might appear more familiar to fans of Barbie or the Pink Panther than the traditional owners of a Jag.Unveiled in two colours, Miami pink and London blue, the new electric car, called the Type 00, is described by the brand as a “concept with bold forms and exuberant proportions to inspire future Jaguars”.The model features the Jaguar logo laser-etched into a brass ingot on each side of the car, which themselves open to reveal rear-facing cameras that provide a view for the driver similar to conventional wing mirrors via screens located in the cabin.The most eye-catching features, bar the colours, include the lack of a rear windscreen, with rear-view cameras instead installed under gold patches behind the front wheel