A 'Made in China' crisis awaits big auto

When Jaguar's "COPY nothing" brand reboot hit late last year, one self-styled car enthusiast replied on X: "What the actual hell is this?" Jaguar's response: "The future." That remains to be seen. But the ad, unfamiliar and unsettling, does at least work as a portent of what's coming for the global auto industry.

Jaguar, a storied but struggling British brand owned by India's Tata Motors, shredded its existing traditions with a 30-second video long on po-faced models but with no sign of an actual car. It all heralded a new direction—high-end electric vehicles—with a concept, the Type 00, revealed in Miami shortly thereafter.

It's a time for radical moves in autos. Just before the Type 00 unveiling, news broke that both Stellantis' chief executive and Nissan Motor's finance chief were abruptly departing. A few weeks before, Volkswagen had announced the seemingly unthinkable: Closing auto plants in Germany (it later agreed with unions to keep them open but reduce capacity). A little earlier, Ford Motor touted what felt like its millionth pivot on EVs. Not to be outdone, General Motors closed out last year with a trifecta: A $5 billion write-down in China, the sale of its stake in a US battery factory project, and the sudden closure of its in-house robotaxi arm, Cruise.

The industry has been hit by not one but two meteorites: Chinese automakers and electrification.