Driver’s 100mph hell in runaway electric Jag
Police convoy boxes him in on motorway, bringing car to a halt when brakes fail and engine won’t stop
A DRIVER has told how he thought he was going to die after the brakes of his £80,000 electric Jaguar failed at 100mph.
Nathan Owen, 31, was trapped inside the luxury car as it accelerated down the M62 without stopping after an ‘electrical fault’.
He called 999 from the driver’s seat and the 35-minute ordeal was finally brought to an end after police used specialist pursuit tactics to buffer the Jaguar I-Pace and bring it to a halt.
Mr Owen said: ‘ In the back of my mind, I was thinking, “I’m going to end up crashing the car, I’m going to kill myself or I’m going to kill an innocent person on the roads”.
‘The car was in its own world – it just had no brakes. The worst thing about it is that it’s happened before.’
The crisis support worker said his car had also gone rogue on the motorway in December, this time reaching 120mph before he was able to change it into neutral.
He claims Jaguar handed him his car back 24 hours after he had taken it to be looked at.
He added: ‘I just know I’ll never be getting into this car again. I just wish that I would have got help with it the first time I had the problems, and I didn’t just
‘It’s happened before’
get given back the car.’ Jaguar Land Rover has confirmed it is investigating Wednesday’s incident as a priority.
Dramatic pictures show the black Jaguar wedged in between two patrol cars from Merseyside Police on the eastbound carriageway between junction 11 for Birchwood and junction 12 for Eccles.
Mr Owen was driving home from work in Ormskirk, near Liverpool, when he tried to overtake another car at about 2.30pm.
‘The car literally just started speeding up,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t press the brakes. The speed was going towards about 100mph in the high 90s. I thought this was a bit wrong. It came up on the dashboard saying there was a battery malfunction in my car.
‘I kept trying to press the brakes but nothing was happening. So the next thing I thought I should do was call 999 and tell them what was happening.’ Mr Owen, originally from North Wales but now living in Bolton, spent the next 35 minutes surrounded by at least eight vehicles from Merseyside Police and Greater Manchester Police as they escorted him along the busy motorway.
Officers closed off two lanes of the four-lane motorway so that they could bring him to a stop as safely as possible and rescue him.
Mr Owen described the experience as ‘scary’, adding: ‘I was just hitting the back of this police officer. I was hitting them at about 90mph. I was still talking to the operator, and I was worried. I was thinking I could potentially kill myself hitting this police officer at 90, or I could kill him if he loses control.’
Mr Owen’s car was finally able to be brought to a stop when the miles on the electric vehicle started running out. He explained: ‘I had ten miles, five miles and then it said on the screen zero miles, stop the car... then the car started gently slowing down and going to zero.’
When the car finally stopped, officers came to the side of his door but he said he was just ‘frozen in the position of holding the steering wheel’. He added: ‘The police were trying to talk to me but I just couldn’t do it.’
A Jaguar Land Rover spokesman said: ‘We are aware of an incident involving a Jaguar I-Pace on the M62 on the afternoon of March 6. An investigation is under way into the cause.’
The I-Pace, which has a top speed of 124mph, was launched in 2018. Early adopters included King Charles, who purchased what was then the Royal Family’s first electric vehicle using his own money. Despite this regal seal of approval, the I-Pace’s sales were so poor it was later discontinued.