Why Is Jaguar Land Rover Bullish on the Diesel Market in America?

Jaguar Land Rover is on the brink of launching a product offensive by virtue of diesel engines, and the company is bullish on the timing.

Announced formally at the Detroit auto show, Jaguar and Land Rover will each offer diesel engines on nearly every model in the portfolio—except the F-type coupe and convertible, for now—in the near future. That means diesel-powered Range Rover and Range Rover Sport SUVs, as well as the upcoming Jaguar XE sedan.

We spoke to the man who has a large stake in the endeavor, chief engine calibration engineer Alan Jones, at the Detroit auto show, to better understand why now is the right time for diesel luxury cars in North America.

It's fairly recent that Jaguar has such big news in the U.S.

It's very satisfying.

Tell me about the genesis of the Jaguar lineup receiving diesels in the U.S.

Diesels are a major element of our products around the world, and very much in Land Rover products where [they] dominate, really. We think the market for us is about right for us to bring that expertise over here and start selling them here. We've been working on it for a few years now. When we decided to do it, we wanted to do it properly, and not just bring a car over that we had engineered for Europe-particularly on the engine side. We thought we'd start at the top end, and looked at the V-6 engine we've had in Europe for some time now, and decided to upgrade it.

A lot of what we did was led by the requirements for this market. Some of it was emissions-driven, so clearly it's quite strict emissions over here, and quite rightly so. We've adopted some of the technologies-low pressure EGO and so on-pretty much driven by the fact that we knew we were coming here. It will be read back to the other markets as well. The other thing is the way the car drives.

We did a customer clinic about 18 months ago, and took 45 people who were used to driving these types of cars-not in our brand, necessarily-we brought European diesels over, and we put [the people] in the cars. Interesting thing was, none of them spotted they were driving in a diesel until they were told. They were generally very satisfied with the European cars. The one thing they didn't think they liked so much was the step-off-the-mark performance pickup of the diesel engine, compared to what they were used to in gasoline engines. So we spent quite some time modifying hardware, and very much the calibration, to really improve on that. We're quite proud of what we've done on this car, and how it feels very progressive. No lag. It feels great. It drives smoothly and without any fuss.

Why is the time right for diesel now?

We're taking advantage of some of the pioneering work done by some of our premium competitors. We've seen some of the success they had, and thought that they found a certain argument for the diesels. We know from talking to our own potential customers that they would like to see a diesel in some of our cars, so now is the time. The point is, we can't do everything. We're a relatively small company-growing fast-but a relatively small company. Other priorities maybe took place until now, but we think this is the right time.

What about hybrids and electrics?

We do see a big future still for diesel. Undoubtedly there is a future for electric, as well, at a certain volume. In the future, we'll obviously be doing products appropriate to that. We still see, and for some time in the future, frankly, that diesel is the ideal fuel, really. Now that it can be really clean, and it doesn't have any reason for not using it from the cleanliness point of view, it's unbeatable, really. You can still do all the miles and get great fuel economy out of it. This sort of thing is going to be around for a long time.

You'll call the Range Rover diesel Td6. What about nomenclature for the Jaguar XE diesel?

We'll come around to the naming as each car is rolled out.

What happens if diesel doesn't hit your mark in the first year or so?

We'll give it a long time. We're not in it for the short term. We'll let it play out for some time yet. I'm confident it will, to be honest. We have plenty of other products, if it doesn't work. Given the challenge of CO2, it is the right fuel to use. That will overwhelm some short-term pricing issues. There's just an attribute benefit; the customer gets a benefit for driving a diesel. It will feel great to drive-particularly in some of these cars where customers aren't interested in revving, roaring performance. They just want to go smoothly and elegantly from A to B and the diesel will do that perfectly for them. With that low-speed torque, it's just so nice to drive.

Will it be a challenge to convince Americans that diesel is an option?

Sometimes, we actually get the request from customers coming into the stores who say, "Where's your diesel?" So, there's certainly a number of people who won't be any challenge to bring across at all. It'll be interesting to see how it spreads. Events like this help make people aware of it. Some of the positive aspects of it, we'll need to carry on that positive messaging.

Do you expect customers to cross-shop other diesels, like the BMW X5 and Audi Q7, or from within the dealership?

I think it will be a mix. To be perfectly honest, there'll be people who drive those products and like the fact that they're diesels, and would really like to have one of our brand, but they couldn't until now if they really wanted a diesel. You're right: There will likely be some who switch over from petrols to the diesels. I don't know. It'll be interesting to see.

You seem very optimistic.

I am very optimistic. I really think it's going to work. It's such a good product. I've driven it, and I know it's good. In 12 months' time, we'll see what the figures tell us. But even if it takes 24 months, it's worth it. It won't dominate the market, and I'm not saying it ever will, but we'll have a nice, healthy chunk that's worth going after.

Why didn't your test group notice the difference in power, if they might have been driving a mix of 6- and 8-cylinders?

The reason they didn't notice the difference is because this has pretty much the same torque as the V-8 gasoline engine, anyway. If you do any monitoring of revs, when people drive around, they don't go above 2500 rpm. Most people don't. Obviously, you get people who enthusiastically drive, and that's a different product that they would like. An overwhelming number of people just do not hit the revs. If they don't do that, they get the enormous benefit of the diesel. They think, "this is great, it drives nicely." Because the acoustic capability of our cars is such as it is, they didn't notice any ghastly rattling, or anything like that. They genuinely didn't know until we told them. Some of them didn't believe us, either, until we opened the hood.

How important is China to you?

China is important for many brands, and for us, as well. The growth has been quite phenomenal over the last few years, such that we are now building a factory there ourselves and doing a joint venture to capitalize on that growth and allow it to carry on. It's also a big market. We are quite evenly spread among the markets [at about 20 percent per market]. It goes up and down slightly, but it's a nice, healthy balance. We're quite satisfied with how the balance is at the moment.

Will you pursue a diesel strategy like this in a market like China's?

We have diesels in China. In fact, in most markets around the world, we offer diesels. This was pretty much the only market where we didn't offer the diesels, and now we do.