Grenadier wrote:

Supacat wrote:

Since going on sale in the UK, new registrations for the Defender have averaged 303 per month, including all dealer demo stock, pre-registered cars, experience vehicles and management cars. That's a long way from selling well, even further away from JLR's forecasts.

Supacat, still waiting for a year on year extrapolation to see how many New Def sales are all new to JLR and how many are actually poached from (mainly) the Disco.

For Grenadier - not sure it answers the question directly but it gives a general picture of the relative strengths of model sales over an extended period of time:

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Click image to enlarge

In 2016 sales of Defenders and Discos totalled 73,576.

In 2021 sales of Defenders and Discos totalled 64,353.

A 12.54% decrease.

Philip wrote:

If they are really only registering 300 per month

LincsLR wrote:

Cheshire110 wrote:

“increased costs more than 10 fold” - source? I don’t believe that for a second.

Supacat wrote:

There's the factory at Nitra £1.5 billion, recruitment & training of the new labour force (and housing and transport) ; £500 million of vehicle development; unknown millions on the marketing.

What do you think was spent on the old model on a 10 year cycle?

10 fold might actually be conservative...

Perhaps a little simplistic to look at costs in this very linear way; the car industry uses highly complex financial models to justify the decisions they make, and the initial sales numbers are just one part of that.

LincsLR wrote:

assuming future versions don’t demand significant retooling, these early costs will support the production of models for years to come.

JLR have again, for at least the 2nd time, announced that all legacy platforms are to go. In the case of the Defender the D7x into the MLA flex platform. So your assumption would be incorrect.

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LincsLR wrote:

Finally and most importantly, car sales have been and continue to be massively impacted by COVID and a global parts shortage.

LincsLR wrote:

To be fair to the model, we need a more ‘normal’ year to see the ‘real’ numbers.

Supacat wrote:

LincsLR wrote:

Cheshire110 wrote:

“increased costs more than 10 fold” - source? I don’t believe that for a second.

Supacat wrote:

There's the factory at Nitra £1.5 billion, recruitment & training of the new labour force (and housing and transport) ; £500 million of vehicle development; unknown millions on the marketing.

What do you think was spent on the old model on a 10 year cycle?

10 fold might actually be conservative...

Perhaps a little simplistic to look at costs in this very linear way; the car industry uses highly complex financial models to justify the decisions they make, and the initial sales numbers are just one part of that.

"Depreciation is charged on a straight-line basis over the estimated useful lives of the assets."
[quoted from JLR Annual Report 2019-20]

LincsLR wrote:

assuming future versions don’t demand significant retooling, these early costs will support the production of models for years to come.

JLR have again, for at least the 2nd time, announced that all legacy platforms are to go. In the case of the Defender the D7x into the MLA flex platform. So your assumption would be incorrect.

Click image to enlarge

LincsLR wrote:

Finally and most importantly, car sales have been and continue to be massively impacted by COVID and a global parts shortage.

There's always "headwinds" in business, and the motor industry can be particularly cyclical. There's also companies that have product that is wanted and so have seen little effect during the pandemic. In terms of massive impact to JLR the loss in sales, year on year, have actually been LOWER since Covid than in the years prior...

FY 18/19 down 9.33%
FY 19/20 down 7.73%
FY 20/21 down 7.06%

LincsLR wrote:

To be fair to the model, we need a more ‘normal’ year to see the ‘real’ numbers.

When has there ever been a "normal" year - the Defender has had the kitchen sink thrown at it in terms of marketing, there was supposed to be huge pent up demand. It simply has not taken the orders anticipated and only come 4th in the LR model sales table.

In terms of recent new/refreshed model launches it's sold less in the first 12 months than everything bar the Discovery:

RRS relaunch April 2013 - 50,953
Velar launched June 2017 - 56,287
Discovery relaunched Dec 2018 - 35,641
Evoque relaunched Feb 2019 - 83,902
Discovery Sport refresh August 2019 - 65,962
Defender launched March 2020 - 39,663

Wow, took you a while to come back with a challenge. Guess I made you work for this! Do you ever get bored of being such an unpleasant know it all?

It’s easy to take a single sentence and try and find another single statement elsewhere that allows you to dismiss any opinion other than your own. Not much thought (or intelligence) required to do that. You seem so intent on dismissing any reasoned argument with your myopic view of the world that no matter what anyone says, you can’t engage effectively.

To be clear, depreciation is just a tiny element of my explanation. Try looking at the rest. Or, if you’re only interested in point scoring, then don’t, of course. I guess it depends on the fragility of your ego

As a car industry expert (or armchair google fanatic), you will know that a new platform does not by definition mean complete retooling. It very much depends on how the factory was developed. Knowing they were going to replace a platform (and that is not new news, in case you didn’t know?) allows for numerous future cost mitigating factors to be included. So no, I don’t think my assumption is invalid. Neither do I think your argument is totally invalid. See, a little balance there for you. You should try having a little balance sometime, if you’re able to

Supacat, you present yourself as a font of all knowledge. In reality I assume you use google to collect, collate and combine data (poorly) to “empower” yourself with some information (often taken out of context), and then push your agenda with a horrible attitude that demeans people on this forum. Not all the time though. Sometimes you can be really helpful and pleasant. I agree with you on the faults of JLR and the need to call these out. But surely there is, as mentioned just above, a balance? Perhaps you should consider adjusting your medication so that you don’t present as quite such a poisonous, bile filled troll at times. And if you don’t recognise my description, just read up through this thread, or indeed any of the other many thousands of comments you’ve left on here. Some brilliant. Some incredibly rude. Many just plain ignorant.

I can’t wait for your reply, telling me how stupid I am. But I won’t respond to it, so perhaps it is best you move on to try and bully someone else. Or of course, you could just stop. Stop being rude. Stop being a bully. Stop presenting your own arguments as fact. Stop creating poorly combined data as pseudo fact.

Have fun in your personal echo chamber.

Best wishes...