‘I was curtly reminded we weren’t here to talk about that’

I recall the moment like it was yesterday, because it was so unusual. A motor show meeting room, 2017, and across the glass table sits one of the Jaguar E-Pace’s engineering leads and his PR minder. Not much about the scenario is unusual. Motor shows are rich in interview opportunities, and PR minders are a mostly pointless but understandable part of the modern comms machine.

We’d merrily discussed the E-Pace’s rigid structure and promising engines, not to mention its clear Evoque DNA, all of which added up to the prospect of Jaguar’s second ever SUV being a decent drive. Then I asked about electrification, and whether it felt at all remiss to be launching a new SUV in 2017 that relied solely on petrol and diesel power.

The electric i-Pace, in barely-any-different concept form, had been shown a year earlier, and in 2017 Tesla was in the process of ramping up Model 3 production in a desperate attempt to meet rampant demand. Q4 2017 was the California maker’s best quarter to date, up 27 per cent on the same period the year before, and by the end of that year it was churning out Model 3s at the rate of nearly 1000 per week. These weren’t mere clues that electrification was on its way. They weren’t that weird phenomenon of the tide going out before a big wave. This, it was pretty clear, was the big wave.

But I was shut down nonetheless, the PR minder curtly reminding that me that we weren’t here to talk about electrification. Which reminded me a little of the line in

The Lord of Rings when, in reply to the king of Rohan’s assertion that he ‘will not risk open war’, Aragorn replies: ‘War is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.’

Told you so? Hardly. That the i-Pace was – and still is – a brilliant trailblazer yet hasn’t set the world on fire is proof that Jaguar’s problems are complex. In February, CEO Thierry Bolloré proclaimed Jag will be all-EV by 2025 – bold, but hardly surprising. Equally, the cancellation of the electric next-gen XJ came as no surprise, and reminded me of another motor show meeting room interjection, though from Honda this time, and more helpful.

We were in Tokyo, 2017, and the show had gone gooey over the Sports EV Concept, the Honda E’s sports-car sibling. One of our group was reminded that the car was just that, a concept, and not proof of imminent production. (While neither the electric XJ nor the Sports EV will see the light of day, Jaguar poured years of R&D spend into its stillborn EV before changing tack – the Honda was only ever a concept.)

I finally drove the Honda E city car this month, and it left me both confused and wistful. The car itself is odd, with its curious ergonomics, runabout range and excessive tech. But it’s fun to drive, even if its nearcuboid dimensions (it feels as tall as it is long) mean it bobs and rolls when you get carried away. And so it had me daydreaming about the Sports EV – the same powertrain in a cosy, low-slung coupe with to-die-for lines cribbed in no small part from Toyota’s 2000GT of the ’60s. Which in turn was inspired by a Jaguar (the E-Type). Which is where we came in.

Enjoy the issue.