Jaguar unveiled the Type 01, its electric car, at an event in New York on Tuesday night, with prices set from £130,000 ($172,000) and a clear target in its sights: young, wealthy American buyers. One number complicates the home-market picture - at more than 5.2 metres long, the car will not fit in a standard 4.8 metre UK parking space.

A New York debut after two scrutinised years

The launch capped a rebrand that has run for two years and ranks among the most closely watched in automotive history. The road to Tuesday night passed through several flashpoints:

• •Late 2024: an advertisement featuring stern-faced models, with no car anywhere in shot, provoked an online backlash.
• •Next came the Type 00 concept car, unveiled in 'Miami pink'.
• •Donald Trump called the pink concept 'woke'; Nigel Farage said Jaguar deserved to go bust.

Glover admitted the criticism 'wasn't always easy', but argued: 'The reality is we will need to attract a new audience.'

Priced for rich, tech-literate American buyers

At £130,000 ($172,000) to start, the Type 01 costs roughly double the F-Type's starting price of about £62,000. Jaguar follows a path Range Rover laid down in September, when its first fully electric model appeared at £154,070 against £107,530 for the combustion car it replaced.

Managing director Rawdon Glover, 58, said bosses hope the car appeals to a younger, richer audience than the manufacturer's 'shrinking and ageing' base of 'men in their 50s'. Likely buyers, in his description, are 'urban' and 'very design literate, very technology literate'. Pressed on whether doubling prices could work, he said the alternative was to 'toil away as we have done for the last two decades in the volume premium space'.

His pitch to those customers was blunt:

The venue, Glover conceded, 'absolutely' could have been Silicon Valley instead, given the buyer Jaguar is chasing. He recently took a Type 01 prototype to Nvidia, the California-based AI company, where boss Jensen Huang had a ride and 'loved it'.

Long, wide and too big for a British bay

The design breaks sharply with the F-Type: an ultra-long bonnet, a low roof and a muscular stance. There is no rear window - a rear-facing camera sits where a traditional mirror would. Jaguar says the car produces more than 1,000 horsepower and will travel up to 400 miles on a single charge.

The dimensions raise a practical problem on British roads:

• •At 2 metres (6ft 5in) wide, the Type 01 will hog the country lanes frequented by Jaguar's old customer base.
• •At more than 5.2 metres long, it will not fit in a standard 4.8 metre UK parking space.

Glover's answer: 'There are long cars out there on the market', including a Land Rover Defender with a wheel on the back, which he said is longer than the Type 01. All-wheel steering, he claimed, gives the car the 'turning circle of a Fiat 500', making it 'incredibly manoeuvrable'.

The bet behind the car: falling sales and job cuts

The Type 01 lands at a precarious moment for parent company Jaguar Land Rover, whose sales have fallen as cheaper Chinese rivals eat into its UK market share. The company is still recovering from a cyber-attack last year estimated to have cost the economy £1.9bn, and recently announced 4,000 job cuts to save £1.7bn over two years, citing 'intense competition and ongoing geopolitical uncertainty'. Staff on the Type 01 programme were reportedly offered voluntary redundancy alongside the rest of the non-manufacturing workforce.

The stakes behind the car:

• •'It's really important that we put Jaguar back on a more solid financial footing,' Glover said.
• •China will wait: no launch there for 'a couple of years. We've decided just to hold off on that,' said Glover, though he expects the country eventually to be 'an important part of the equation'.
• •JLR chief executive PB Balaji has said the group will pivot towards North America and target more sales to millionaires and billionaires.
• •Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds called the new EV 'a crucial step in JLR's plans to invest over £15bn in the UK', said the British-designed, engineered and built model will support thousands of jobs across the West Midlands and North West, and framed it as part of the mission to 'reindustrialise Britain', building on more than £1bn of UK automotive investment secured the previous month.

Sales of the Type 01 begin in early 2027, with the first customers expected to take delivery in the second half of that year.