Jaguar I-Pace Review
This is powerful piece of the electric vehicle in SUV’s car. It’s is made by Silicon Valley automaker or it's increasingly icky and chief executive. But the point is that, while comparisons are inevitable in any type of product review, electrified cars like the I-Pace or (Nissan Leaf, Honda Clarity, Byton SUV, Renault EZ Ultimo) are mature enough to deserve consideration on their own merits.
The I-Pace is not only Jaguar’s first pure-electric model. It also sets a new standard for luxury electric vehicles; it provides punchy acceleration and thrilling handling, augmented by spaceship-style whirs emanating from the speakers. The I-Pace, on the other hand, makes a strong design statement inside and out, including luxurious materials. In reliable Jaguar fashion, the I-Pace is one of the most head-snapping SUVs around, an enticing mélange of facets, curves, and angles. This crouched cat looks like it’s ready to pounce. And its paws are huge and sharp, with optional 22-inch wheels on my HSE model and Pirelli P Zero tires that sacrifice some fuel efficiency and ride quality for style and grip. 18-inch wheels with low rolling resistance tires are standard; available 20-inches are likely the Goldilocks split between efficiency, comfort, and performance. The I-Pace leads a slow-forming wave of electric-vehicle introductions from luxury marquees including Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche. It makes a fitting Jaguar, too considering the packaging advantages, the effortless torque, and the near silence of battery-powered propulsion.
The I-Pace is nearly two inches shorter than a BMW X3, but its stretched wheelbase is on par with an X5. It’s much shorter and lighter than the Tesla by about 14 inches, and 400 to 700 pounds, bringing the AWD Jag in around 4,800 pounds. About 1,300 pounds of that comes from a 432-cell, lithium-ion battery wedged below the floor of the passenger compartment, a battery whose generous 90-kWh delivers a Jaguar-estimated 240-mile driving range.
The I-Pace will be available solely in EV400 spec. In this configuration, two identical electric motors one to power each axle give the I-Pace all-wheel. Ample power is supplied by a pair of AC electric motors, that together spool up 394 horsepower and 512 pound-feet of torque. The I-Pace storms to 60mph in about 4.5 second, about 0.4 seconds quicker than the Tesla Model X 75D. Despite this, you never quite shake the sensation of the I-Pace 4800 pounds slurring its straight-line responses. Planting your right foot lacks the stomach-turning shocked of the Tesla Model X’s ludicrous mode.
Jaguar claims the I-Pace decelerates at 0.20 g in the higher of two regenerative-braking settings when the driver lifts off the accelerator, adequate to negotiate many traffic situations without sliding a foot to the pedal to the left. The initial brush of the brake pedal increases the regent deceleration to a maximum of 0.4 g before the friction brakes engage. Pedal modulation is predictable, and transitions from regenerative to friction braking and back are seamless, although we would prefer more firmness and shorter pedal travel.
Owners will mainly feed their Jaguars at home, where the lithium-ion pack will take about 12 hours to charge from near-empty to full on a 240-volt Level 2 charger, 32 amp service. Jaguar, like the rest of the established auto industry, has no answer to Tesla’s Supercharger network. All I-Paces come equipped with SAE CCS ports for DC fast charging, but owners will have to negotiate an incomplete and fragmented network of third-party providers and, even then, will be accessing slower charging. While the I-Pace can accommodate 100-kW DC charging, outside of Tesla’s 125-kW equipment the existing infrastructure almost all operates at 50 kW. Those units should charge an I-Pace’s battery from zero to 80 percent in 85 minutes, stretching the definition of fast.
Jaguar takes the burgeoning standard of an eight-year/100,000-mile battery warranty a step further by defining that the battery will maintain a 70 percent or better state of health until that point. Chevrolet warranties the Bolt EV’s battery to 60 percent health, and Tesla doesn’t define a minimum acceptable performance. While the early-build I-Paces used for the media launch displayed excellent build quality, they weren’t without flaw. One car reported a high-voltage short and refused to power on when a driver thumbed the start button. Less alarming, in another car, one of the windows became stuck in a half-open position. In theory, the relative simplicity of a battery-electric car should help Jaguar boost its subpar reliability ratings, but only time will tell how the I-Pace holds up.
As for prospective EV buyers, the I-Pace starts from $70,495.That rises to $81,495 for the HSE version and $86,895 for the First Edition for the 2019 model year.
