Setting The I-Pace

With SUV sales predicted to hit 24.3 million by 2020 and the EV segment the fastest growing in the automotive industry, Jaguar has every confidence that an electric SUV should sell.

- Jonathan Musk

But first, it needs to convince the market that this is a vehicle worthy of worldwide appeal. Naturally, anyone au fait with electric vehicles will immediately point towards Tesla which has managed to gain global interest, if not always in the best light. Jaguar, on the other hand, is a company that has built its reputation and success on internal combustion. Of course, that is largely because petrol and diesel were the only power sources available for a long time.

Today, Jaguar is a very different and forward thinking animal that plans to electrify its fleet of vehicles by 2020, starting with the I-Pace.

Having first experienced the I-Pace in development mule form, it’s an understatement to state that we were excited to give the production version a go. And, after 11,000 hours of rig testing, more than 1.5 million miles of test drives and 200+ prototype vehicles made, I-Pace is finally ready for market.

Let’s get technical…

Perhaps the most talked about aspect of any electric car (though it shouldn’t be) is range. There’s a 90kWh battery that offers 298 miles (480km) autonomy - and that’s WLTP rated, meaning it should be a far more realistic figure than the often nonsense NEDC might suggest. The battery can be charged in 13.9 hours using a 7kW home charge point, or as little as 15-minutes can provide 62 miles of range using a 100kW rapid charger - twice the power of current generation 50kW chargers (not that you’ll find any in the UK, yet).

I-Pace uses the Combined Charging Standard (CCS) and so benefits from being able to use any of the thousands of compatible rapid chargers around Europe.