New Jaguar I-Pace – The cat hunted the Mask

I confess honestly - the recent premieres of Jaguar, i.e. F-Pace and E-Pace didn't evoke any emotion in me. Oh, SUV and crossover, another one in the premium class. Another sports and luxury car brand to date that has succumbed to market pressure despite its kinship with SUV legends Land and Range Rover. Do Jaguar fans want SUVs? Apparently so, since the I-Pace has just appeared on the market, another all-terrain "cat" with British pedigree. Electrifying, because purely electric.

And I was most interested in the fact that the I-Pace is an electric car, the first in the premium segment, available for official sale in Poland. I went to Jastrzab with no expectations, curious how Jaguar decided to outrun the biggest European manufacturers by several lengths. The presentation was like the best Hollywood action movie, where tension builds up every minute. I'm not exaggerating, that's how it was.

Imperceptibly and predatory at the same time

Does an electric car mean a stylistic freak? Not this time! At first glance, the I-Pace reveals little. He is a crossover - this is a fact, but this is not visible from afar. The silhouette is oval, the windshield slopes at steep angles, and the large D-shaped grille and predatory line of LED daytime running lights suggest that this is a rather large coupe. Up close, you can find slightly more ground clearance and some beefy body ribs. However, sports accents can be seen in many places here: a high line of side windows, a low and strongly sloping rear roof topped with a spoiler, and a tailgate with a pronounced vertical cutout. All these elements create a very dynamic looking cross-fastback body. 

Wheels, while 18-inch wheels are available (looks awful), the electric Jaguar is absolutely best on the big 22-inch alloy wheels. When I saw this car in the pictures, it seemed to me disproportionate and clumsy. But in order to objectively judge the appearance of the I-Pace, you need to see it live.

Technological top shelf

The technical details are impressive. The I-Pace is a crossover that measures 4,68 meters but has a wheelbase of almost 3 meters! What does it have to do with it? Above all, excellent driving comfort as well as space for all batteries up to 90 kWh under the vehicle floor. This procedure made it possible to lower the center of gravity of a difficult car as much as possible (in the lightest version it weighs more than 2100 kg), which is monumental in terms of handling and cornering stability of the car. 

The drive is a real firecracker: electric motors generate 400 hp. and 700 Nm of torque transmitted to all wheels. I-Pace accelerates to hundreds in just 4,8 seconds. This is an excellent result for a crossover weighing more than two tons. But does the data on paper match the positive perception of this Jaguar in reality?

Premium class of the century.

The first acquaintance with the electric Jaguar is the spectacular door handles protruding from the plane of the door - we know them, among other things, from the Range Rover Velar. Once we take our seat, we have no doubt that we are sitting in the car of the century.

Everywhere screens with large diagonals and high resolution. Multimedia and air conditioning control is similar to the solution from the already mentioned Velar. 

Despite the fact that I dealt with pre-production units, the build quality was excellent. The gear knob known from British cars is gone, replaced by elegant buttons built into the center console. A very pleasant impression is also made by a virtual set of driver's indicators, or, more simply, "clocks". All animations are smooth and displayed in very high resolution. 

The interior is spacious - four people travel in complete comfort, the fifth passenger should not complain about the lack of space. There are USB sockets everywhere for charging mobile devices, the seats are spacious, but they have good lateral support, so the seat does not fall out during faster turns. 

The trunk is a big surprise, and indeed the trunks. Under the hood we have a "pocket" for a 27-litre charger. On the other hand, in place of the trunk, fortunately, there is a trunk, and there we are waiting for as much as 656 liters. Electric cars are slowly becoming champions in terms of trunk capacity, measured in liters. 

The future is now under high stress

I am sitting in the driver's seat. I press the START button. Can not hear anything. Another button, this time shifting the gear to Drive. There is a long straight ahead on the track, so without hesitation, I change the driving mode to the most sporty one and press the pedal to the floor. The impact of the torque is so strong, it's like someone hit me with a stick in the kidney area. Acceleration from 0 to 40 km / h is almost a journey through time. Later it is more linear, but in less than 5 seconds the speedometer is over 100 km/h. 

Hard braking with high suspension and huge curb weight should be a drama. With this in mind, I press the brake on the board and the car obediently stops, while gaining quite a lot of energy. On dry roads, the I-Pace feels like it weighs half a ton less than it actually does on 22-inch wheels. You can feel the weight of the car only during a very sharp and fast slalom, but this does not interfere with keeping the track - it is not easy to bring the car, although the front axle loses its first contact with the ground. 

When driving on a skid and on a jerk, the stabilization systems very effectively put the car on the right track. What about on a public road? Quiet, very dynamic, extremely comfortable (thanks to air suspension), but at the same time tough and quite sporty. The I-Pace handles well with both a crossover and an electric car. The first electric Jaguar is not a prototype or a vision of the future. This is the first all-electric premium car available in Poland. I-Pace, being the first in this class, set the bar at the height of the world record. And this means a war in which the most durable weapons will be required to win.

In Poland, the only option in this class

Throughout this article, you must have wondered why I didn't write a word about the Jaguar I-Pace's biggest competitor, the Tesla Model X. Why didn't I? For several reasons. Most importantly, Tesla as a brand is still not officially available in Poland. Secondly, in the P100D version, with similar characteristics (range in the NEDC standard, power, battery capacity), it is more expensive by almost PLN 150 gross (Jaguar costs from PLN 000 gross, and Tesla X P354D, imported from the German market, costs PLN 900 gross). Thirdly, the build quality of the Jaguar is at a much higher level than in the Model X. And although on a straight line in Ludicrous Mode, the Tesla gains a hundred in an unimaginable time of about 100 seconds, against the I-Pac in the corners. Of course, the choice is made by buyers, guided by their own taste, but for me, a car that is faster in a straight line always loses to a faster car in the corners. 

electric bomb

Jaguar I-Pace is a real electric bomb in the automotive world. Without any announcements, promises or bragging rights, by hard at work on dozens of beautiful prototypes, Jaguar has created the first true electric car in its history.  

From the point of view of the brand image, it is also a coup - they created an electric crossover. If it were a sports coupe, many would criticize the car for its lack of gasoline smell, exhaust blasts, or high-revving engine roar. No one expects such things from a crossover. A premium crossover needs to be impeccably made, comfortable, well-voiced, stylish, attractive and efficient in everyday driving, even when we have to cover more than 400 kilometers at a time. That's what I-Pace is. And as a gift from the company we get acceleration from 0-100 km / h in less than 5 seconds. 

Jaguar, your five minutes have just begun. The question is, how will the competition respond? I can not wait.