Jaguar unveils Type 01 electric GT as JLR cuts 4,000 jobs

Jaguar unveiled the Type 01 in New York on Tuesday. The four-door electric grand tourer has more than 1,000bhp and will be built at Jaguar Land Rover’s Solihull plant from 2027. It is the only car the brand will offer when it returns to showrooms.

For now, the car is all Jaguar has to sell. The last car of the previous generation, an F-Pace SVR, left the Solihull line on 19 December 2025, ending 90 years of continuous manufacturing. JLR has spent about £2.25bn on the aluminium Jaguar Electric Architecture beneath the car, according to Autocar, and reports say a limousine and an SUV are likely to follow on the same platform.

The launch comes at a difficult moment for the parent company. Last month JLR said it would cut 4,000 jobs worldwide over two years as part of an effort to reduce costs by £1.7bn. It said most of the losses would fall on non-production roles and in its UK operations. JLR employs about 40,000 people, roughly 34,000 of them in Britain. It has cited competition from cheaper Chinese electric vehicles, rising costs and US tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.

PB Balaji, JLR’s chief executive, called the Type 01 “the beginning of an exciting new era”. A government statement quoted by Sky News said production would support thousands of jobs in the West Midlands and the North West.

Accounts of the price differ. Sky News reported a starting price of £130,000, with orders opening early next year. Autocar said the car will start at £120,000, that well-equipped versions will cost about £150,000, and that bespoke examples may pass £200,000. Either way, Jaguar is moving well above the executive saloons it sold for decades and into the territory between top-end Mercedes and entry-level Bentley. Autocar expects first deliveries by mid-2027.

The choice of New York points to where JLR expects most buyers. The car is 5.2 metres long and built for the American luxury market rather than British town centres. It also sits far above the price range where Chinese manufacturers are gaining ground in Europe.

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The car has three electric motors, one on the front axle and two at the rear. Jaguar quotes 0-62mph in 3.2 seconds and an official WLTP range of 450 miles. Its engineers told Autocar that the car will cover about 320 miles at sustained motorway speeds. Jaguar has previously targeted adding up to 200 miles of range in as little as 15 minutes on a rapid charger. The car has no rear window; a roof-mounted camera feeds a screen in the cabin instead. Production figures remain subject to final certification.

The Type 01 follows two years of public argument about the brand. In November 2024 Jaguar introduced a mixed-case wordmark, a redrawn “leaper” emblem and slogans including “Copy Nothing”. A promotional film featured brightly dressed models and no cars. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, predicted the company would “go bust”. Elon Musk asked on social media whether Jaguar sold cars. Rawdon Glover, Jaguar’s managing director, said at the time that the company wanted to be bold and disruptive.

The cyberattack was a further setback. In September 2025 the attack forced JLR to shut its systems and halted production at its British plants for weeks, costing tens of millions of pounds a day in lost revenue. JLR confirmed a £196m hit, and estimates put the cost to the wider UK economy at about £1.9bn.

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JLR is keeping hybrid options for Range Rover, Defender and Discovery, but says Jaguar will remain fully electric. Glover has pointed to the current Defender, which doubled in price and tripled in volume compared with its predecessor. He has also said Jaguar’s success at the higher price is “conditional”.

JLR says 50,000 people worldwide have registered interest in the Type 01 and that 80% of them have never owned a Jaguar. Neither figure has been independently verified. The first customer cars are due in mid-2027.