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

If this is a glimpse of Jaguar’s future on cabin design, it looks to be taking inspiration from its German competitors in some ways, making more of a design feature of its ventilation controls. They look like oversized watch bezels, and all the more decorative on an interior that’s otherwise very light on switchgear and fittings. There’s more chrome decoration on the I-Pace’s steering wheel and on its column stalks than I’m expecting, too. Perceived quality has been an area where Jaguar could improve for a long while now. It looks like they’re intending to.

Moving swiftly on. A small, square starter button and a three-button transmission control are all you need to ready the I-Pace for the off. This one’s been performing short demonstrations all day, and the genial chaps who’re managing it tell me they’ve been struggling to charge it between runs. I’ve no idea how much charge is in the batteries, and I’m told I’ll get a couple of runs up and down the 200-yard strip of tarmac we’re standing on before they have to take the keys away again. It’s not much to go on; less still when they tell me that this car only has one of its two electric motors on board and that it’s limited to 50mph.

Even so, it doesn’t struggle to get away from standing. Like most EVs, the I-Pace responds instantly to the merest prod of accelerator and zips up to town speeds with the easy flexibility of a one-tonne supermini. Jaguar won’t say how much the car weighs, but it must be considerably less than a Tesla Model X. With twice as much instant torque on tap as this, I can believe 100kph in 4.0sec may even be a pretty conservative target.

The car’s steering is heavy, its ride noisy and firm – but that’ll be the concept car factor in evidence again. Show cars always ride like trolleyjacks – especially when they’re on 23in alloy wheels. You can hear the friction in the car’s driveline; its steering and brake pedal feel like they’ve had no tuning at all.

But this part of the I-Pace’s driving experience isn’t at all representative of what we might expect of the finished car, and all it proves is how much effort goes into finishing Jaguar’s modern cars. The I-Pace uses the same double-wishbone and integral link suspension setup as the XE, XF and F-Pace, and all of those cars handle well enough to top their respective Autocar classes for keener drivers. That, combined with the favourably low centre of gravity that a floor-mounted battery will provide, is reason enough to expect great things when we get to drive the finished car.

Until then, Jaguar devotees can look forward to the familiar dripfeed of technical titbits, as the I-Pace’s engineers get closer and closer to finalising its specification. A motor show debut for the production car is expected sometime in 2018, with the earliest deliveries expected the same year. It’ll be an ambitious schedule to keep to, and who knows whether it give us a car that’ll sell in its hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands. But it’ll certainly give us a real car – that much, it seems, can be depended on – and one whose prospect is now as enticing, to this tester, as it is interesting.

Matt Saunders
(Autocar UK)