Producers of goods and services often re-jig their portfolio, launching new offerings that are quite different or may be very differently priced. You’d like to think the product managers will have a plan for what their thing does, who will be their target customer, how much they’re be prepared to pay for it, where it will be sold and so on. They might even have an Ideal Customer Profile defined, so they can effectively pitch their wares to the right people.
It takes a brave – or even foolish? – company to actively decide their current buyers are not the ones they want in future. Telling someone that your product is not for them might be a good way of ensuring they don’t come back to you; or if you want to win them back, it could take a lot of effort.
There are plenty of times that companies seem to be making crazy decisions that look good on a PowerPoint slide in some internal planning meeting but get a very different reaction when unveiled in the real world. Either they don’t appreciate who their customers are and what they want, or they consciously decide that they need to appeal to a different set. Sometimes, they get it right (see Henry Ford’s misquote about people wanting faster horses) but not always…
“No plan survives first contact with reality”
… could be used to describe some of these. A slight reworking of the famous quotation that has evolved into “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy”, or Mike Tyson’s “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. Some brands make what they conclude are stupid mistakes, and they quickly bury the evidence and move on (e.g. New Coke, GAP logo, Windows Vista). Or it might prove in the long run that they really knew what they were doing after all.
Shocking Electric Cars news
As has been mentioned before (#780), there’s a car industry move towards electrification, initially largely driven by government mandate to make manufacturers pivot from selling polluting Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles to initially selling cleaner hybrids and onto full zero-emission Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs). Consumer demand for EVs has been less than enthusiastic, due to high initial costs in comparison with ICE (though that is lessening), charging infrastructure concerns and the doom-mongers of the red-faced press. That said, people who have made the switch love them and the tipping point may be just about here.
Both Mercedes and Ferrari have recently announced high-end, EV-only cars and the reaction has been very mixed.
The Mercedes AMG 4-door GT Coupe might be hugely impressive on paper, with its supercar-humbling performance along with synthesized V8 rumbling soundtrack and a virtual “gear shift”, trying to appeal to enthusiasts of old-school AMG. Its £160k price-tag for the top spec C63 seems hefty, but then it’s got more power than a Bugatti Veyron so could be seen as cheap by comparison.
Mercedes are replacing a petrol-powered mashup of big saloon and 2-door sports car; it was expensive (£100K+) and presumably didn’t sell all that many cars in comparison to the rest of the range. But now the old dinosaur is no more and it’s being replaced with the pure EV that will be some kind of halo car.
But look at it. Online commentators have not been kind to its appearance. Maybe the “never buy an EV” keyboard warriors are the last people Mercedes are trying to woo with this car. Porsche must be looking over their shoulder, but their Taycan model has been around for years and though it might not suit every colour or wheel choice, they are generally thought of as good-looking cars.
Coming a few days after the Merc, Ferrari finally took the covers off their long-awaited first full EV – the Luce (which means “light”, even if it is expected to tip the scales at 2.25tonnes. Yes, a 5,000lb, 5 seat electric Ferrari which might go like a stabbed rat and will cost well over €500,000).
The Luce had input from design agency LoveFrom, featuring Apple design gurus Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson. They got to design the car from a clean sheet, especially the interior, which has been broadly seen as A Good Thing. Unusually, the inside was unveiled ahead of the rest of the car, and now we can probably see why. It is said that particular focus was on tight integration of all the car’s systems: just as Apple strove to make deliberate design decisions to make things simpler and feel better thought out.
Externally, however, car journalists are mostly in “WTAF” mode. But they’re not the target customer, nor perhaps are Ferrari’s regular clientele. Maybe the ultra-rich, modern tech bro type doesn’t want something that’s got lots of fins and wings and shouty exhausts.
Auto blogger Shmee150 (whatever you think of his caricature, he does speak a lot of sense sometimes) commented on the Luce launch as being the most controlled, tied down unveiling he’d ever seen. Some of the more traditional motoring press were not invited, while some more new media tech-forward people were.
It’s almost like Ferrari knew it was going to be hugely controversial, and the people in the room who were classic Ferrari fans were foaming at the mouth while the “new gen” were loving it. Shmee/Tim drew a division – those who wore Apple watches loved it, while those with mechanical watches did not.
It’ll be interesting to see what the Luce does for the rest of the Ferrari line-up – since there’s basically zero familial resemblance, it’s hard to see how some of the innovations in this model will trickle down to the others in the range. Ferrari’s in-house design centre might well be smarting at the fact they had little hand in the whole project, but they might also be smirking at some of the reactions to the way the thing looks.
One critique is that if you took the Ferrari badges off, there’s no way you’d know it was a Ferrari. It has a little bit of Jaguar i-Pace about it (as seen by Waymo users worldwide), and Nissan even poked a bit of fun at Ferrari through (now-deleted) social posts:
There’s even a joke that it could be mistaken for a next-gen Fiat Multipla…
For Mercedes, they’re replacing that previous petrol-driven AMG GT 4-door coupe so their new GT is clearly aimed at converting traditional customers to be EV buyers without wearing a hairshirt or seeming like they need to renounce their previous passion.
Ferrari, on the other hand, seem to be splitting their market – will Ferrari dealers insist that you buy a Luce if you want to be on the waiting list for their next fire-breathing, limited edition hypercar? Maybe, but it does seem like Ferrari is consciously admitting this isn’t the car for you if you’re one of its regular customers.
Backing both horses (to a degree)
Traditional car makers shifted their product lines to initially put in electric drivetrains in place of ICE or hybrid, and some still offer multiple variants of each model. Increasingly, they’re building bespoke EV-first offerings that are more efficient, therefore get longer range from the same-sized battery and (with the right kind of roadside infrastructure) can charge much quicker too.
Some are cheaper, too. Volvo’s forthcoming EX60, nominally the replacement for the XC60 family SUV (which is the Swedish company’s most successful car ever), works out about 7% less expensive (for an equivalent spec) than the top range hybrid. And the new EV is faster yet still has a quoted range of over 400 miles.
Tellingly, Volvo has not said if and when it will kill off the petrol engined forebear, though. As long as enough buyers will fork out for the older car, they’ll going to try to keep making it.
BMW has launched the first of a new generation (“Neue Klasse”, a rethinking of the way the cars look and how they work under the skin), in its iX3, which has been awarded “World Car of the Year 2026”. Not just best EV, but the best car full stop, if you pay attention to awards.
The new i3 saloon, an EV equivalent of the iconic 3-series, is about to enter production; it promises over 550 miles of range on a full charge. Again, BMW hasn’t said it is replacing the 3-series but it feels like a matter of time…
Jaaaaag – the early bird catching the worm?
18 months ago, Jaguar famously burned their entire house down, ceasing production of all ICE cars and saying they were going to build a whole new range of EVs, starting with a huge and expensive car that would be new from the ground up. Trailing this whole reinvention with the bizarre “Copy Nothing” advert. The backlash was loud and immediate, with commentators questioning the sanity of trying to rely on a huge £100K+ pure EV saloon car as the one product to save the company.
As things have developed, Jaguar may have got rid of a few key people, appointed a new CEO and even decided not to retain the agency behind their relaunch ad… but the car’s development is going well, and it’s said to be very good indeed, if you like that kind of thing.
Covered in camouflage, Type 01 prototypes have been driven by a load of car journalists, alongside a fleet of “greatest hits” from Jag’s heritage fleet. It seems they really want to show that what made their cars great in years gone by can still be applied to even the latest tech now.
You wonder if Jag’s designers and marketeers aren’t quietly pouring one out for Ferrari & Mercedes, since they got so much flak for the Type 00 designs a little more than a year ago, but in the meantime, those who have seen the prototypes are saying it’s going to look and go very well. We’ll see later this year.
