Jaguar is diving headfirst into its electric future with the Type 01, a massive, battery-powered luxury sedan designed to take on the likes of Bentley and Rolls-Royce. Motor1.com asked former Jaguar design boss Ian Callum, the father of several iconic Jaguar designs, what he thinks of the newcomer. His judgment is, of course, personal, but it also makes sense.

The rollout of Jaguar’s next EV, the first of an all-new era, hasn’t exactly been met with unanimous praise. The internet criticized the iconic English brand for its design and its unorthodox marketing approach. Regardless, Jaguar pushes on with its new Type 01, revealing its name just a few months before prototypes hit the street. The official debut is now scheduled for later this year, after several postponements.

Ahead of what might be Jaguar’s most important debut in the company’s history, Motor1.com spoke to the man who spent more than 20 years leading the company’s design department and got his thoughts on Jaguar’s new look and direction.

No beauty

Ian Callum is an industry veteran. He began his career in the late 1970s with Ford, before working his way up to lead Jaguar in 1999. Callum left the automaker in 2019 to start his own company, Ian Callum Design, which specializes in many things, from designing very special retro Minis over lavish chair designs to concepts for special wheelchair-accessible electric vehicles (like eVita) or sporty EV off-roaders (Callum Skye).

According to Ian Callum, the new Jag lacks one thing: beauty. “‘The Type 00 concept – whose lines are closely followed for the production model Type 01 – is very bold, and it’s very dramatic. But it lacks beauty.”

“I won’t deny this dramatic boldness; it’s a very extreme proportion. For me, the proportion is too retro… but the extremity is brave. It’s brutal, but it lacks beauty, and I think a criterion of Jaguar is to be beautiful. I’m not saying it’s a bad design, it just lacks that very important, I would say crucial element of Jaguar design, beauty,” he explained.

During his 20 years as head of Jaguar’s design department, Callum designed some of the most iconic Jaguars of all time. Or how else to call the XF and XJ sedans or the XK and F-Type coupes and roadsters.

Callum also came up with the forward-thinking I-Pace, Jaguar’s first move into the electric era.  He still considers it one of his greatest designs. His final act at Jag was the incredible C-X75 concept. Although it never reached real production, you can still sort of buy one from his company today.

Electric supercars?

According to Callum, there’s another issue with the Type 1. He believes that the electric powertrain will also limit the large Jag’s appeal as more and more wealthy buyers seem to avoid or loathe very pricey EVs.

“I think the Type 01’s biggest challenge will be the fact that it’s electric. That’s not an opinion on my part; that’s just a fact of life. If you look at all the electric supercars, nobody seems to want any. People who buy supercars aren’t going to worry about fuel consumption; that’s for sure.’

‘They tend to view a certain age group, generally older. They’re not 25-year-olds, they’re 65-year-olds, and they’re of a certain generation where the noise of the engine and the changing of gears is very important to them. That’s not going to continue forever, but it’s a reality now, ” Callum concludes.

Callum might have an important point here. Executives have spoken at length about the difficulties of bringing electric vehicles to the high-end performance market. As well Bentley as Rolls-Royce have been backtracking lately; Bugatti-Rimac CEO Mate Rimac, who is offering an EV hypercar, said recently that buyers simply aren’t interested in electric hypercars at the moment.

Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann noted something similar, calling them an ‘expensive hobby, and when Ferrari recently launched its first full EV, the internet almost exploded with not-so-friendly comments.

That makes it very unclear what the future might hold for Jag’s first high-luxury EV. We’ll just have to wait and see if the Jaguar name magic is strong enough to also convince the most wealthy but also the most whimsical buyers.