- Popsdosh
- Member Since: 06 Nov 2021
- Location: Cambs
- Posts: 138
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Interesting article in the press with JLR talking about Discovery 12K sold worldwide in last 12 months.
They state that they are still looking at justification for the seven seaters and no thoughts about a new model until that exercise is complete . Dont forget RR seven seater will already have taken up some of the numbers as thats why they produced it as there was a demand from those who were forced to slum it in a disco for the family DS is more likely as it sells four times as many . Also competition from the defender in 8 seat configuration.So even if they go for a new seven seater I cant see anything before 27 at the earliest .
- Ian_S
- Member Since: 18 May 2021
- Location: South
- Posts: 89
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The problem I have is that you cannot say that 12k is the actual demand as there are horrific wait times on the Discovery.
*IF* you could walk into your dealer today, order a D5 and it arrived 3 months later with *whatever* spec you wanted, then yes, if it was still only selling 12k units then fair enough.
However, Land Rover themselves have publicly stated that they have focused on the production of Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Defender as they make a lot more money on them. For the RR models it's obvious why with the new pricing, but less obvious is Defender.
When Defender launched, you could get a base 110 for abut £43k (which people said was way too expensive...), however now, the base 110 is over £63k !!!! Base!!! By the time you're into a decent spec on Defender you are well north of £80k and if it's a V8 well over £100k.
The top spec D5 is about £80k.
So for JLR to cite 12k sales as a reason to drop the Discovery is frankly disingenuous as they know damn well 12k is not the demand. It's the bare minimum they can get away with without completely destroying what is now one of their new Brands. It's no better on Discovery Sport either. They stopped taking orders for anything bar the PHEV about a year ago, and unless they've opened the MY24 book, even the PHEV was stopped earlier this year. The number of DS's built outside China has been dreadful. Yet the DS is LR's best selling model in a calendar year. Demand hasn't vanished, people have just gone and bought Volvo's etc. because at least they are building them.
The cynical part of me says LR are doing this so they can reposition the Discovery brand into the gap vacated by Range Rover as they moved the pricing over £100k...
I know they are a business, and it's their choice to re-position, but the least they could do is build/honour the orders they had before that... To then question the models future based on deliberately constrained sales is stretching credibility quite far.
EDIT: The Discovery Sport sold over 125k units in 2017, 2022's figures, 33.3k. Before project Reimagine kicked in, and volumes across all models were going back up, they sold 18.5k in a single qtr. Next qtr... 5k.
- Ian_S
- Member Since: 18 May 2021
- Location: South
- Posts: 89
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As for the seven seat Range Rover... I'm not sure too many potential RR customers were slumming it in a DS.
The lowest spec RR with 7 seats and zero options is £118k, and for that, from the reviews I've seen on YT, you get less space in the 3rd row than you do in the Discovery.
The old RRS had a seven seat option, but again was more a +2 than full size seats.
The Discovery remains the most practical 7 seater in the range, the Defender 130 is seriously compromised when the 3rd row is folded.
In 2022, Volvo sold almost 100,000 XC90's. For me, the Discovery is a much better vehicle.
The fact that Land Rover could only build 12,000 Discoverys in the same period speaks more about JLR's catastrophic chip supply mis-management than the market for a solid 7 seater disappearing.