Here we go again… ‘Jaguar Land Rover to make only electric or hybrid cars by 2020’ is what you’ll read on Sky News. The Guardian headline uses exactly the same words, only swapping ‘by’ for ‘from’ at the end. ‘New Jaguar models to be electric in 2020’ is what your £147 tax gets you this year over at the BBC.
Just as we saw with Volvo a couple of months ago, a clever piece of PR from JLR has been swallowed by a mainstream media and resulted in some misinformed headlines and stories.
For most, their motoring news will go no further than reading that headline on a homepage, or on a social media feed. To them, Jaguar Land Rover will soon only be a maker of electric cars, just as Volvo will be. They won’t.
In fact, JLR’s announcement is even less significant than Volvo’s, as details omitted from the vague press release reveal that it’s making its electrified technology optional, while every Volvo will at least be a 48V mild hybrid.
Honda announced pretty much the exact same thing as JLR the other day, yet did a much better and fairer job at explaining the detail, the consequence being it missed out on its procession and back slapping on Fleet Street.
Of course, this doesn’t take away from the fact that JLR’s announcement is good news for the company and the UK car industry. The firm has lagged behind its rivals so far in electrified technology, particularly around hybrids, but it will get to a big, usable electric car ahead of everyone other than Tesla next year with the launch of the Jaguar I-Pace. That’s something much better to shout about.
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One happy day
And it isn't as far off as some pretend, I'm going to laugh my cock off when the arse falls out of the electric bandwagon, and all this money being spent on the red herring is revealed as utterly wasted. Electric cars are going nowhere.
completly misleading fluff from JLR
The Press release was only 2 paragraphs and the opening line was "From 2020 all new Jaguar Land Rovers will be electrified" then quoted the CEO saying the same thing. No reference to it being optional or anything like that so no wonder the media simply printed what JLR said. Its this type of crap that gives PR a bad name
well done Autocar for picking up the phone as asking for details.
It's all PR...
So has this been engineered by JLR for maximum publicity, or is it just that the journalists didn't read the release properly?
Almost excusable when it's the mainstream media, but when Auto Express and Top Gear have the same confusing headline it makes you wonder if anyone actually checks anything.
It's all the same...
...whether JLR set out to hoodwink the press, or the media to hoodwink readers and listeners. It's a very modern tale of don't-watch-what-I-do-just-listen-to-what-I-say. All very murky and no-one comes out of it with any credit. whatsoever Not the company, not the media, and not even the public which shows an increasing tendency to swallow any old guff if it takes no effort so to do. More information than ever, but precious little intelligence, and it would have been nice if - in the wake of Bell Pottingergate, as no-one's called it yet, these communications professionals tried a little harder to be a little less cr*p.