Jaguar I-Pace concept review, test drive

Just before Jaguar packed its stunning electric crossover SUV concept off to the Geneva show, our sister-magazine Autocar UK took it for a spin.

Published on Mar 17, 2017 07:00:00 AM

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Jaguar I-Pace concept review, test drive

“We’re about halfway through the development work of the production car,” says Shaw, “and we’re on time and on track to deliver against our original promises. That means we’re about six weeks away from having the first ‘VP’ prototypes (the first mules in what’s approaching a final specification) to work on.”

Sounds like life’s about to get quite exciting for Shaw and his team. The promises he refers to are the headline numbers that Jaguar committed to when the I-Pace concept was unveiled at the LA motor show last autumn. 400hp and 700Nm of electric power and torque from one electric motor per axle. 0-100kph in around four seconds. Just over 483km of usable cruising range. And a 90kWh lithium-ion drive battery than can be charged to 80 per cent full from a public DC fast-charger in 90 minutes. If those performance figures are delivered on, they’d make the I-Pace a faster-accelerating and longer-legged car than the Tesla Model X 90D. And that would be a pretty stellar showing for Jaguar’s first road-going EV of any kind.

Shaw’s evidently so confident of achieving those targets because his engineers were involved in the I-Pace’s design from its embryonic stages. The I-Pace, as anyone inside of Jaguar will tell you, was that treasured rarity among so-called new cars: a genuine clean-sheet design unconstrained by segment norms or predecessors or the design compromises imposed by a normal combustion engine and driveline. It could have been the wildest designer’s flight of fancy any motor show ever saw – but it isn’t.

“As a company we realised about five years ago,” says Shaw, “that it saves us all a lot of pain further down the line if we all sit around a table early on to decide what’s the best we can do with what we've got. Otherwise the designers come up with a car that aesthetically meets everything they want it to do, only to hand over to the engineers who have to say ‘yeah… but actually, that bit can’t, that bit can’t and this bit won’t.’ This way we’re all in it together and we all move faster that way.”

So the I-Pace really isn’t just another show car, as Matt Beaven explains. “Design-wise, we were working on the production version of the I-Pace at the same time as the concept,” he says. “We were keen not to overpromise; that the production version shouldn’t let you down. It will end up being very similar.”

“This was a huge challenge for us,” Beaven goes on. “The I-Pace had to be recognisably a Jaguar while starting in a totally blank space. We knew from the off that we weren’t interested in the kind of electric car sub-brand that other car-makers have introduced. This had to be an authentic Jaguar, and communicate Jaguar’s traditional values through entirely new proportions.”