Despite offering sleek and appealing vehicles, Jaguar Land Rover isn’t exactly a best-selling brand in the U.S. While many factors contribute to this result, Jaguar Land Rover CEO Thierry Bollore offers a refreshingly honest take as to why this is.

In an interview with Automotive News reported by Motor1, Bollore stated that vehicle quality issues are at the center of this issue. In fact, Bollore believes the company misses out on at least 100,000 sales annually due to poor quality vehicles. However, since the brand has announced it will go mainly electric by 2025, this could be a saving grace.

What is wrong with Jaguar Land Rover?

Jaguar Land Rover develops a wide variety of vehicles ranging from supercharged sports cars to electric crossovers. As a result, it takes plenty of time and effort to maintain a high level of quality across all of these models. As mentioned earlier, this is where Bollore believes the brand is lacking, resulting in over 100,000 lost sales. Additionally, quality issues directly affect the brand’s image in the public eye.

“The dissatisfaction of our customers was really detrimental to our natural volume. The missed opportunities today are massive. It’s more than 100,000 healthy sales that we could perform.”

Jaguar Land Rover CEO Thierry Bollore via Automotive News

While this Jaguar Land Rover story holds true globally, it is particularly true in the United States. According to Motor1, both Jaguar and Land Rover ranked amongst the lowest brands in a recent J.D. Power quality survey. However, Bollore reportedly has a plan to turn things around.

Could electric cars be the answer?

A few weeks ago, Jaguar Land Rover announced that it had plans to electrify a large portion of its vehicles moving forward. In fact, Jaguar as a brand is set to go completely electric by 2025. While it may seem like the wrong time to embark on such a massive shift given these current issues, this could have some serious benefits.

Bollore reportedly told Automotive News that the brand is taking massive strides to improve quality across the board. Part of this means reducing the complexity of current models. Through this method, having simpler cars could make it easier to retain a higher level of quality. This is where electric cars could sweep in to save the day.

According to The Detroit News, electric cars are significantly easier to build than standard internal combustion models. In fact, a conventional drivetrain can reportedly have as many as 2,000 parts. In contrast, electric drivetrains can have as little as 20. As a result, this simplification could have massive positive effects.

How do the current 2021 models stack up?

Since Jaguar Land Rover has big plans for its future, let’s see how the current 2021 models stack up. According to Consumer Reports, all 2021 Jaguar models have poor predicted reliability scores. This includes the F-Type, XE, XF, E-Pace, F-Pace, and I-Pace. What is particularly interesting about that last one is that the I-Pace is electric.

On the other hand, Land Rover had even worse predicted reliability ratings, receiving the lowest Consumer Reports score possible. These ratings are equal across the brand’s entire 2021 model range. This includes the Defender, Discovery, Discovery Sport, Range Rover, Range Rover Evoque, Range Rover Sport, and Range Rover Velar.