THE ORIGINAL
JAGUAR I-PACE EV400 AWD S BLACK
The automotive world has been shaken to its core by the sudden rise of the electric car. No longer curiosities, a new EV elite is in the ascendency and they’re putting ICES on the endangered species list. If you’re an old-school petrolhead, it’s all going topsy turvy, frankly. Twenty years ago, the world’s most valuable car company didn’t exist, selling cars nobody, seemingly, wanted to buy.
This shift away from the Motor City ethos to Silicon Valley pragmatism has forced longestablished manufacturers to take their heads out of the sand, shake off the rust and tackle the concept of future mobility with a fresh perspective.
An all-electric premium SUV/ crossover matchup between Jaguar, BMW and Mercedes-benz proved just how tremendously quickly the mobility landscape has changed. These three EVS come in disparate shapes and sizes but are united by batteries and characters that are as progressive and bright as their appearance.
As it stands, the newest car here, the top of the range BMW ix xdrive50, will set you back a cool R2 175 000. The subtly updated version of Jaguar’s talismanic Ipace – the South African Car of the Year in 2020, don’t forget – is now available only in S Black guise and retails for R1 999 900. Pricing for our third competitor, the EQC 400 4Matic, has not yet been officially announced, although Mercedesbenz South Africa is putting a huge focus on its EQ range of EVS in 2022. We can expect five pure electric Mercedes EQS this year: A, B, C, E and S. As is the way with the current automotive landscape, the EQC has been on sale elsewhere in the world and 99 000 examples have found happy homes in 2021. Will it, and the rest of the EQ range, succeed on a similar scale in SA? Let’s get cracking with our evaluation.
As we gathered in the early morning haze, the first flecks of sun began to light up Cape Town Stadium, all eyes drawn to our beguiling trio. The bashful Audi e-tron we tested last month could’ve been accused of whispering a little too softly about its EV credentials, but there was no such issue with these brightly coloured specimens. Perhaps the biggest shock on first acquaintance is not their phantasmagorical paint tones/wraps, but rather just how darn massive they are. However big they may look here, forget it, pictures are misleading.
Once the photography was in the bag, I started the journey in the Jaguar, because, well, we’ve driven it on countless occasions since it was first introduced to SA in 2019, its credentials are impeccable, and it undoubtedly represents the benchmark against which the others must be
measured. It’s the OG of EVS … the original.
From an imaginary start/finish line where the real one for the Cape Town E-prix would have been on Vlei Road at the back of the old Green Point Stadium, we accelerated hard and revelled in the instantaneous electric torque and zero-slip traction of the I-pace.
The Jag’s 294 kw and 688 N.m twin permanent magnet synchronous motors are used to good effect to get it to 100 km/h in 4,80 seconds. This was the only brief indulgence in performance driving we were allowed, mind you, as from there the E-prix route veered sharply left onto the M6 towards the city.
We had to navigate the merry folk of Cape Town in their ICES going to work on a typical bustling weekday.
At the traffic circle, we scythed off onto Granger Bay Boulevard with the stadium to our left. The second-longest flat-out section of the E-prix circuit is interspersed with a chicane intended to slow the cars. Then it’s a sharp 90degree left onto Beach Road where the full-throttle, batterydraining run continues, towards what will undoubtedly prove a very tricky, lap-critical high-speed sweep left past the Radisson Blu Waterfront Hotel. If they get through it safely, there is one more 90-degree left onto Fritz Sonnenberg Road before a tight right-hander onto Vlei Road that takes the Formula E racers back over the start/finish line and onto another lap. Instead, we dropped anchor for our emergency braking test and the Jaguar came to a dead stop from 100 km/h in 3,0 seconds over 42 m.
The average speed is anathema – although it took us just over six minutes – but we kept a beady eye on the energy consumption over “the lap” and the I-pace recorded a consumption figure of 16,2 kwh/ 100 km over the 2,9 km route. Benchmark set, it was time to hop into the electric Mercedes-benz.
You will enjoy the Jag’s sportiness and lashings of luxury – it’s the OG of EVS – the original.