Jaguar XE now OUTSOLD by the F-Pace, E-Pace – and even the XF

The Jaguar XE, Jaguar’s answer to the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes C-Class, is now being outsold by the F-Pace and E-Pace SUVs – and even the Jaguar XF.

Last year we asked if Jaguar had lost faith in the XE to deliver the sort of sales needed to make Jaguar as successful as Land Rover. It was a lament to the decline of the sports saloon – and the rise and rise of the SUV – but a year on we thought we should take a look and see if the prospects for the XE have improved since then.

Launched with great expectation – JLR’s Ralph Speth said the XE “will outperform our existing models” and is “Unbelievably important” – Jaguar believed it would ignite sales as buyers, particularly UK buyers, flocked to a car which promised to be appealing, competitive and a proper antidote to the Teutonic offerings. But it just hasn’t happened.

Sales have never come close to the 100k a year Jaguar were hoping for when the XE launched (and some expected it to do 200k a year), and in 2018 the XE is starting to disappear under the radar, hampered no doubt by its lack of variants and the ongoing love affair the car buying public has with SUVs.

That lack of variants is a big deal for buyers (we’ve had endless emails asking why there is no XE Estate or Coupe), but it’s a catch-22 problem for Jaguar; without the volume it’s not economical to deliver an Estate or Coupe – or a proper range-topping SVR – but without an Estate or Coupe the volume isn’t there.

The XE is also being battered by sales of the F-Pace and E-Pace SUVs, with XE sales in April at just 2,295 units globally whilst the F-Pace sold 3,958 and the E-Pace 3,119. So far in 2018, XE sales are down 30 per cent in January, 42 per cent in February, 46 per cent in March and 7 per cent in April.

Perhaps more worrying for the XE is that it’s now being outsold by the Jaguar XF too, and has been every single month for the past financial year. Jaguar now sell 25 per cent more XFs than XEs, compared to the 2016/17 year when the XE outsold the XF by a similar amount. XE sales have dropped from 45,469 in 2016/17 to 32,825 in 2017/18. 

Just like Jaguar’s last venture in to this space with the X-Type, perhaps it just has to be accepted that a compact premium car is not a market Jaguar can compete in and should now, sadly, concentrate on the E-Pace, F-Pace, I-Pace and, almost certainly, a J-Pace XJ-sized SUV to come and other SUVs, electric or otherwise?

We asked Jaguar what they thought about the XE’s sales, and although they were keen to point out the XE has sold 110k since it arrived in 2015 – and has been “pivotal to Jaguar’s growth in recent years” – they were much more interested in telling us that the F-Pace sold 50 per cent more in 2017 (76,350) than Jaguar as a whole did in 2011 (50,678). 

Which probably tells us all we need to know.