Short Analysis: What Are Jaguar’s Advantages

Compared to other major luxury brands in the US market (Mercedes/BMW/Audi/Lexus/Infiniti/Acura etc), Jaguar is somewhat “small”.

Below is 2014 sales figure for the above brands:

Jaguar: 15,773 units

Mercedes: 356,136 units

BMW: 339,738 units

Audi: 182,011 units

Lexus: 311,389 units

Infiniti: 117,330 units

Acura: 167,843 units

So you can see Jaguar’s sales is just a tiny portion of its competitors. However, this does not mean Jaguar cars are low quality, or technologically outdated. In fact it has two very prominent advantages in the automobile industry:

(Above: Jaguar XE’s aluminum body-in-white)

1. Aluminum car body structure across the full product line. Almost all Jaguar models are using full aluminum unibody construction (aluminum monocoque). Starting from 2003, the XJ has been full aluminum for two generations (X350, X358, X351); The latest XK and F-Type are also full aluminum. The cheapest XE also has a car body composed of 75% aluminum. The only exception is the XF, which was designed back in the days when Ford still owned Jaguar, which is based on the Ford DEW platform. But the redesigned XF is coming out very soon.

(Above: Jaguar AJ133 5.0L Supercharged V8 Engine)

2. The AJ133 V8 engine family. The AJ133 engine series has incorporated many latest technologies, such as spray-guided fuel direct-injection, continuously variable intake and exhaust camshaft timing; cam profile switching and variable track length inlet manifold (naturally aspirated version); 6th-gen twin-vortex supercharger (supercharged version). The AJ133 supercharged V8 is considered by some people to be one of the best supercharged V8 engines in the industry.

Compared to Jaguar, currently many luxury vehicles are still using steel body construction, this is especially true in most entry-level models. For Jaguar, as mentioned above, even its cheapest XE sedan is using 75% aluminum.

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