Allegedly leaked images of Jaguar’s new electric vehicle show a car without a rear window

We live in an era of defaced cars. Alleged concept drawings for Jaguar’s new electric vehicles have leaked online ahead of their unveiling at Miami Art Week. The concept art depicts a car similar to other state-of-the-art luxury brands. The cars are ugly boxes in pastel colors without a rear window. If you need to see behind you, just look at a screen in the car.

Pictures of Jaguar’s relaunch appeared on the Coche Spias forum today. The concept art matches another image Jaguar shared on its website, showcasing the new vehicle. Both the website and the concept art state that the car has no rear window. The ad copy says “Don’t copy anything,” but the luxury car maker has adopted the lack of a rear window from electric rival Polestar.

The Polestar 4 and 5 from the Volvo company do not have rear windows. It makes the cars more aerodynamic, but also cuts off an important line of sight while driving. To see behind them, drivers look into a camera located where the rearview mirror once was. Jaguar seems to be heading down the same path.

I hate this feature. Forgive me. Maybe it’s the 30 years I’ve spent on the highways of Dallas, but when you show me a luxury vehicle without a rear window, all I see is a coffin. Automakers have spent the last 20 years trying to insert electronics between the driver and functional analog functions. Huge touchscreens have replaced tactical and easy-to-use buttons.

Tesla’s door handles don’t work if it gets too cold or there’s an error in the software. In its impressions video of the Polestar 4, Top Gear noted that the first model it took for a spin malfunctioned due to a bug in the software. When I look at these cars, I think of Angela Chao, a wealthy CEO, backing a Tesla into a pond and drowning because she couldn’t roll down the electronically controlled windows and dead because she pressed the wrong button on one Touch screen pressed.

Jaguar’s new all-electric vehicles appear to be all about automotive identification. The luxury car brand has had a difficult time in recent years. The manufacturer never sold many cars, but it had a loyal following of rich weirdos willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars for a bit of British luxury. That hasn’t been true for years. In 2018, the company sold around 180,000 cars. In 2023 there were only 67,000.

In 2021, Jaguar announced its transition to all-electric vehicles. The traditional manufacturer will only produce electric vehicles by 2025, it said. Elon Musk has managed to successfully turn electric vehicles into a luxury item. Teslas and the Cybertruck may be hideous, but they are also a sign of wealth. Jaguar wanted a piece of it.

On November 19, the company debuted its new vision in a 30-second commercial. It featured a pastel-draped collection of beautiful models strolling through a strange pink moonscape. In the grand tradition of luxury car advertising, the Jaguar commercials did not feature Jaguars. Critics seized on this, as well as the use of a diverse model group in advertising, declaring that the British manufacturer had woken up and would soon go bust.

The concept art is a boxy, pastel nightmare. It looks like an electric vehicle that’s trying to remind people of American muscle cars of the past. They’re disgusting, but they’re not for me. They are not cars to aspire to. It’s not the kind of vehicle you pass on the street and lust after, it’s a flashy status symbol that reminds you that the person in it has money. If Jaguar followed the feel of Tesla and Cybertruck, then it was spot on.