What am I looking at here?
It’s Jaguar’s fully electric mid-sized crossover living neatly between the E-Pace and F-Pace in terms of dimension, not the alphabet. It’s also fully aluminium thanks to a construction process that involves a copious and advanced riveting process making it the stiffest Jaguar vehicle ever made. And attractive – as every Jaguar of late has strived to be (with great success). You can expect that lavishness to translate into an equally impressive cabin complete with a digital presence fitting of the electronic zeitgeist.
But how does it go?
Well, jaguars electric baby benefits from 50:50 weight distribution thanks to clever placement of its 90kWh Lithium-ion battery between both axles, each baring electric motors. That means all-wheel drive. That means performance figures of 4.5sec from 0-100kph from its combined might of 294kW and 696Nm. This is theoretically capable of a 450km range but watch us drain the batteries in 200 despite the I-Pace coming with some truly smart technology to keep it running for longer.
The other stuff
It’s ultimately a crossover SUV so you still get a good deal of practicality here such as a 656l boot capacity, every conceivable modern convenience and an array of safety technology and being a Jaguar you can bet the engineering and driving engagement will be of a high standard too. As for how the market will react – the closest thing the I-Pace has to a rival must be the Tesla Model X but since that isn’t going to be coming to our shores in the foreseeable future Jaguar will have this segment to itself. Since the immediate future is definitely electric and jaguars popularity at an all-time high, it will be interesting to see how the i-Pace performs. It’s not going to be cheap, we expect this to retail around R1.4mil but who knows what the state of the Rand will be once it’s availed for Mzansi consumption.
