you are driving a massive Scalextric car.
Unsurprisingly, the I-Pace has already
been something of a game changer.
Now more than 18 months old, it is
the first electric SUV from a premium
European automaker and in its first year
of production has already won more
than 60 international awards, including
World Car Of The Year. Designed by the
former Jaguar design chief Ian Callum, it
is a more than credible rival to Tesla and
comparatively worth every penny.
Jaguar beat its key rivals – Audi,
BMW, Mercedes and Porsche – to market
with the I-Pace, a demonstration in itselfthat the company’s mind-set has changed.
There were concerns in the industry
that while being first of the established
marques (Tesla was an outlier) is a sig-
nificant statement, it could have put the
I-Pace at risk of being eclipsed once
the others arrived. That hasn’t happened.
In fact, the Audi e-tron and Mercedes
EQC played it too safe, allowing the
Jaguar to consolidate its position as
the most compelling premium EV – in
terms of its aesthetics, refinement and
overall performance. (The Porsche Taycan
is brilliant, but much more expensive.)
The I-Pace is certainly beautifully
designed. Driven by two concentric elec-
tric motors, the I-Pace uses a de rigueur
lithium-ion battery, which will give you a
300-mile range, although it will take you
more than ten hours to fully charge it.
“Find a 100kW DC power supply and
it’ll recharge from zero to almost full in
around 45 minutes, which is fine if you
live in California or Norway,” says GQ’s
Jason Barlow. “Unfortunately, the UK’s
charging infrastructure still lags way
behind and the biggest impediment to
using and enjoying the I-Pace – and all
EVs – is the research you’ll need to do
in planning your journey. Used normally,The Jaguar
Remote app
enables drivers
to interact with
their I-Pace via
smart devicesThe I-Pace beat
other marques
to market and
has stayed in
front sincethe I-Pace’s real-world range is likely to
be closer to 200 miles, so imagine you’re
driving from London to Hay-On-Wye
[182 miles] and back again... On paper it’s
eminently possible and the theory is
you stop and eat lunch while the car
recharges. But you still have to think
about it in a way you simply don’t in a
conventional car. As things stand, I see
the EV as the thing you use day-to-day
in town; EVs are less able when it comes
to spontaneity or long distances.
“The I-Pace comes with an app that
oversees the process and aims to make
it as easy as possible, yet the last time I
drove one, we ran out of power about 30
miles from home, the fast charging point
we found was broken and the slower one
was so poor we could practically watch
the electricity sashay along the connec-
tion. Conclusion: the quality of the car
currently outpaces the infrastructure and
the wider user experience.”
And that’s the problem. There is a huge
appetite for electric vehicles right now, as
we are all aware that the auto industry
is in a state of flex, aware that we are
moving away from a world of fuel-driven
vehicles towards a soon-to-come utopia
of electrically charged cars, shared trans-
portation and perhaps even automatically
driven vehicles. We want to make the
change, but we need manufacturers,
and government, to make it easy for us.
We are all becoming environmentally
aware and are prepared to change our
consumer habits in order to make a dif-
ference. We’re also aware that EVs are >>GQ CARSJaguar has nailed it with the
I-Pace and created something
that looks sufficiently ‘other’
without being too polarising04-20CarsJaguar_3359398.indd 107 11/02/2020 10:46
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