First Drive: Jaguar I-Pace

The I-Pace has been hyped up something chronic since it was unveiled, so expectations among the industry and public have been high for quite a while, which is always a worry. But Prince Harry helped in that respect, by driving Meghan Markle way from their May wedding in an electrified E-Type, making the prospect of an electric Jag suddenly a very sexy one: something about the combination of British racing heritage and future sustainable technology in one very good-looking package.

Ian Callum, Jaguar’s design boss, has done a fantastic job: it’s hard to find the right line with an electric car between something that doesn’t frighten the horses, and something that none the less is markedly different from anything else on the road. By pushing the cabin of the car right into the bonnet, and placing massive 22in wheels at each far-flung corner of the I-Pace, Callum has achieved this incredibly delicate feat. The I-Pace is recognisably an SUV, and recognisably a Jaguar, but it is a very cool cat, with a coupe-style sloping roof, sleek silhouette and huge interior for the footprint of the car, which matches that of the mid-size XE saloon.

Inside, Callum has eschewed a Tesla- or Volvo-styled huge touchscreen pad, in favour of two smaller screens, as are in the Land Rover Velar. So the interior graphics and controls are intuitive, and not too distracting from the drive. The leg room for four adults is impressive; the boot is large enough for the weekly family shop or a couple of large suitcases, although with a spare wheel under the floor, it’s not that deep.

There are some clever touches inside, which begin to make you feel easier about the rather large price tag for this car. For a start, the huge glass roof of the car absorbs infrared light, which means you don’t get hot, so don’t need an ungainly screen to cover it up. The windows are made with the same technology. You can specify the car with smartly stitched leather in a number of colours, or with Kvadrat, Jaguar Land Rover’s new material made of wool and a recycled suede cloth. We’ve experienced it in the Velar and it’s a smart, contemporary alternative to leather.

If you forget to take your smartphone when you leave the car, the I-Pace will alert you. It also offers a 4G wifi hotspot for up to eight devices, and the infotainment and software systems in the car update wirelessly.

Jaguar offers its InControl app to I-Pace owners which in turn you can connect to an Amazon Alexa if you have one at home. This means you can ask Alexa if the car’s locked, what the remaining charge level is, whether you have enough charge to get to work, and more. Conversely, using the HomeLink Connect button in the car, you can control your home’s heating, lights, doors and so on. 

All sounds impressive, although soon it will be the norm for every car. Personally, I’m more excited by Seat right now, which has adopted Amazon Alexa and Shazzam in its cars. 

It’s when you start driving, however, that the I-Pace proves its worth. We tested the car on and off road in Portugal, as well as round Portimao circuit in the passenger seat with Nelson Piquet Jr behind the wheel, more of which shortly. There were no steel-sprung, standard cars on the launch, only the top-spec First Edition variants, which all come with the optional air suspension as standard. This set-up is very, very impressive. The ride is a world away from that of the F-Pace or E-Pace SUVs, with the combination of a low-slung, heavy battery pack between the axles and the air suspension creating an almost Rolls-Royce level of waftability. On the move, this car feels like one with a six-figure price tag, with its 50:50 weight distribution, high levels of grip, good lateral hold through the corners and that seamless delivery of silent torque.

Off road, astonishingly, it’s also pretty good. It is of course from the Land Rover stable, so one might expect competent engineering up and down steep, slippery hills. But you don’t expect it in an electric, luxury Jaguar, yet we forded a rocky Portugese stream and climbed at 15mph up a dusty rutted hillside track, the electric motor on each axel sending the required torque to each wheel when it slipped.

At Portimao, Piquet Junior, on a brief break between Formula E rounds, flung us round the track in the car, which was impressive, but largely meaningless unless your school run takes in the Nürburgring.

But there’s power aplenty for this two-tonne car; at 70mph on the motorway, there’s a surprising surge of power on tap still for overtaking. At speed, the road and wind noise seem obtrusive, but it’s hard to argue how much of that is due to the absence of engine noise. If you fancy some of that, by the way, you can slide a button in settings to introduce some artificial engine noise. And if you happen to have shifted from Comfort to Dynamic driving mode (there’s also eco, for when you need to conserve some charge), you get an extra bout of rorty “exhaust” noise. One senses artificial engine noise will disappear as a car offering in a few years, when people have got their heads round power equalling revs.

What takes some getting used to, still, is regenerative braking. You can choose a less severe setting in the I-Pace, but with the system full on, the car becomes operable with simply the throttle pedal – lift off it from 50mph and you’ll come to a complete stop in good time. I imagine most people will use the full function in order to recoup as much battery power as possible.

Which brings us to the only bone of contention with this car: charging it. I feel badly for the car makers: here they are, building the future and doing it very well, and the charging infrastructure just isn’t keeping pace, despite what people like Chargemaster say. Yes, there are enough public charging points for the number of electric cars on our roads, because the vast majority of owners charge at home or work, but only 1,000 of them in the UK today are 50kW rapid chargers. The I-Pace needs a 100kW, or 150kW rapid charger to fulfil the claimed 0-80pc charge in 40 minutes, and the earliest the UK will get its first 150kW rapid charger is the end of this year.

If your driving habits mean you simply drive to work and back every day, on a round journey that takes under 298 miles – which is most of us – then you’d be ok with just installing a charging box at home (you’ll get a £500 grant for this) and letting the car charge for 10 hours overnight. But for those of us whose lives also include three or four staycations a year, perhaps from London to Cornwall, or Wales, or the Lake District, at the moment you’ll need to factor in an 80 minute stop at one of the UK’s rapid charge points, and hope no one else is there. Nine times out of 10, it will be fine, but do you want to spend over £60,000 and have even the smallest tinge of range anxiety? I’d rather wait a year or so, until more of these rapid charging points have been rolled out. At that point, it’s a firm yes to the I-Pace.

The Numbers

Engine: N/A. 90kWh battery, two electric motors

Transmission: single-speed, four-wheel drive

PS/Nm: 400/696

0-60mph: 4.5sec

Top speed: n/a

Range: 298 miles

Price from: £63,495 exc £4,500 govt grant