Jaguar i-Pace
Jag’s Tesla arrives this summer, concept style intact
GOOD TO SEE you, i-Pace, you haven’t changed! The production version of Jaguar’s first EV is here, and it’s stayed true to the original concept, first shown at the 2016 LA show. ‘It’s narrower and taller, and the wheels are smaller, but I hope you agree we haven’t deviated too much from the concept,’ says design director Ian Callum, proudly.
Taking the £4500 plug-in-car government grant into account, i-Pace prices start from £58,995 for the base S iteration, £64,995 for a middling SE and £69,945 for a top-level HSE. A super-plush First Edition will be sold in limited numbers, at an eye-watering £76,995. That’s the only version available in the fluoro-carrot Photon Red paint pictured here. Production starts this summer in Austria, alongside the E-Pace.
In the i-Pace, a 90kW battery pack feeds an electric motor on each axle for a total output of 395bhp and 513lb ft, swooshing the car from zero to 60mph in 4.5sec. With a 50:50 weight distribution and the ability to switch torque instantly between front and rear, the ingredients are there for an involving driving experience too. Certainly the prototypes we’ve ridden in delivered strong acceleration and that startling, low-centre-of-gravity agility Teslas do so well.
The Jaguar’s also the first electric vehicle to be homologated on the new WLTP test cycle, the replacement for the outmoded NEDC consumption test. Under the new test conditions, the i-Pace is rated at 298 miles, which Jaguar estimates would have been 335 miles under the old, less stringent NEDC test – ahead of the 85kW Tesla Model S.
While the exterior design has survived the transition from concept car to production, pop-out handles and all, the bold interior has been toned down to something more conventional. Still, it’s far from ugly, and uses the same twin touchscreens and rotary controllers as the Range Rover Velar.
Callum describes the i-Pace as ‘technically an SUV’, and the i-Pace’s extra height has helped package the (largely underfloor) EV powertrain. Its overall length of 4680mm is similar to the Porsche Macan, but Jaguar claims interior space is equivalent to the larger Cayenne. Boot space is 665 litres, and there’s a modest secondary luggage compartment up front, with space to take a couple of shopping bags or, more likely, the charging cable in.
Without a pesky engine to get in the way, the wheelbase has been stretched to nearly three metres, and the cab-forward profile creates a mid-engined look that Callum says deliberately echoes 2010’s canned C-X75 supercar: ‘So a little bit of that car saw its way to reality in the end. I wasn’t going to give up on that one!’
NEED TO KNOW
What is it? The production version of Jag’s endlessly shown i-Pace concept
Key tech Running the motors’ shafts on the same axis as the driveshafts is clever packaging Aimed at Monied EV enthusiasts too cautious to take the Tesla leap of faith In its sights Tesla’s Models S and X – Porsche will be next, in 2019