Jag that doesn’t roar

Firm’s £60,000 first all-electric car is launched to take on Tesla

IT won’t turn heads with the roar of its engine, but Jaguar’s first all-electric car will take you nearly 300 miles on a full charge.

The I-PACE 400 can be bought for less than £60,000, seats a family of five and will go from 0-60mph in 4.5 seconds with a top speed of 124mph.

The car – described by Jaguar as near silent – is designed to take on rivals Tesla and Audi as well as cater for a growing ‘green’ market.

Ahead of its public debut at next week’s Geneva Motor Show, the car was launched officially last night by comedian Jack Whitehall in a ceremony beamed online from Graz, in Austria, where it is being built under licence. Order books are open now with first deliveries in July.

The battery unit drives two electric motors developing a total of 400 horsepower – equivalent to about four Ford Fiestas. A full charge at home using a 7kW AC wall box takes 12.9 hours, but using a 50kW DC charger gives an 80 per cent charge in 85 minutes. The car is also compatible with 100kW DC rapid chargers.

Largely unchanged from the prototype unveiled two years ago, the I-PACE’s coupe-like silhouette is influenced by the Jaguar C-X75 which featured in the James Bond movie Spectre but was never put into production.

The I-PACE will cost from £58,995 to £76,995, after a £4,500 taxpayer-funded ‘green’ subsidy is applied. Jaguar said nothing else on the road will look or drive like it, adding that with zero tailpipe emissions, owners may benefit from lower road taxes and tolls.

For a company which built its reputation on sports cars and limousines, the I-PACE marks another significant step into the growing SUV market.

Ian Hoban, of Jaguar, said: ‘For I-PACE customers, fuel stations are a thing of the past. After overnight charging they’ll wake up every morning with a ‘‘full tank’’.’