9 / 10

Leon Poultney

Judging the worth of a car takes time. This is particularly true for the Jaguar I-Pace, which sports the sort of fully electric powertrain that could prove problematic for some when driven daily. The strains of regular driving are particularly amplified when a vehicle is taken away from the extreme lengths – chartered jets, exclusive boutique hotels, fine dining – used by manufacturers to help promote their vehicles.

As a result, frothing reviews are sometimes downgraded when the car in question is driven on the dull, clogged and monotonous roads in the UK. For this review we took our time and spent a good, two week long period using the pure-electric vehicle. So what's it like to live with?


Design

Leon Poultney

Decked out in Farallon Pearl Black paint and wearing 22-inch five-spoke alloy wheels with carbon fibre inserts, this range-topping HSE I-Pace didn't fail to turn heads. It's safe to say that very little has changed from the First Edition models we drove at launch (apart from the fact the steering wheel is now on the right), although this particular model came kitted out with Jaguar's latest Kvadrat recycled textile material on the sports seats, and the optional suede cloth interior package covering the steering wheel, taking the asking price beyond the £80,000 mark.

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Does it feel like an £80,000 car? It certainly is a lovely place to while away the miles, with a beautiful dash and infotainment structure making it look and feel properly premium, but perhaps it doesn't quite command Porsche 911 money. Although, we jumped in the I-Pace to whisk us home after a Maserati SUV launch and couldn't help notice the Jaguar felt like a more special place to be.

Charging

Leon Poultney


The 90kWh battery installed into the floor of the new Jaguar I-Pace is excellent for range and performance – it delivers up to 298 miles and accelerates from 0-60mph in 4.5 seconds – but it requires some serious charging firepower.

A 7kW home charger is essential if you are thinking of topping up the batteries on your driveway, as it takes a good eight to nine hours to achieve a full charge using this method. Plug in from a domestic 32A socket, which we did several times, and it takes days to achieve the same results.

Luckily, we managed to purchase and fast-track a home charger installation during the loan of this vehicle and soon slipped into a routine of plugging it in most evenings to ensure the batteries were fresh for any journeys the following day.

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Leon Poultney


On top of this, we found the predicted range figures displayed on the neat TFT interior screens were accurate and reliable, giving plenty of confidence to undertake longer journeys without the worry those figures would suddenly plummet. However, the big distances we did tackle during our time with I-Pace only served to highlight how sparse the fast-charging (50kW and above) network is, especially on the south coast of the UK.

A long jaunt from Poole to Portsmouth and on to Goodwood using partly charged batteries required a break in the middle to top up, but locating a 50kW charger, which delivers around 60 per cent of a battery charge per hour, proved impossible. The fastest we could find was a 7kW outlet, meaning we were forced to break for an extended dinner in order to complete the round-trip. Not exactly ideal.

Leon Poultney

Emboldened by reliable range read-outs, we were able to cruise home with enough range remaining to get us to a local 50kW outlet we discovered using the Zap Map smartphone app.

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However, and as is common with many of these outlets, it was tucked in the deepest, dankest corner of an underground parking lot, surrounded by awkward steel bollards and blocked by a hapless shopper unable to read the signage. After a thousand-point-turn, we managed to squeeze the frame of the I-Pace into a space that would allow for the comically short charging cables to reach its socket.

Leon Poultney

Then, after several attempts with the Polar Charging Network RFID key fob, we successfully kick-started a fast-charging session that would see the batteries topped up to near full in the time it took to have a coffee and a bite to eat.

For anyone uninitiated in the ways of the electric car, this experience could have easily seen them stomping back to the dealership to demand their money back. Thankfully, not all top-ups are this painful. Third-party apps, such as Zap Map, allow the community to comment on particular charging stations and report anything untoward, so often are the best resources to check before arriving.

Connected car

Leon Poultney

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More time with the electric Jag meant more time to play with the additional features that potential punters are likely to use on a regular basis. These include the Jaguar Remote and a new-fangled Go I-Pace app, the latter is really a marketing trick to show how much you could be saving on each journey if you decided to go electric. The former is more useful and allows users to perform the usual connected tasks on their vehicle, such as check on remaining range, remotely lock and unlock the car, locate a parked vehicle on a map, set climate pre-conditioning and even look back at past journeys.

Admittedly, it feels strange having to first pair an application with the vehicle by pressing and holding a small button located inside the cabin, as well as downloading a selection of other related apps to assist with journeys, proving that even cars can't escape the fiddly set-up process associated with modern technology.

The same can be said about the infotainment system, which looks slick with its dual screen displays, but it can be slow to use, and swiping through the various menus is tedious when you really need to get to a specific function.

Leon Poultney

Case in point: the lane control assist, which kept trying to tug the car toward the central reservation on a particularly narrow road. Finding the button to turn that off took numerous swipes and jabs, with eyes peeled away from the road for longer than advisable and many expletives muttered.

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As stylish as multiple screens are, it's sometimes better to consign important functionality to obvious buttons.

On the road

Leon Poultney

A common misconception with electric vehicles is that they are 'dull' or 'lifeless' to drive, and while that might be the case for some models, anyone who has driven a Tesla will attest to the addictive acceleration and impressive punch off the line. The I-Pace takes things a step further by throwing in impressively nimble handling, driver engagement and a genuinely spirited drive when the mood takes.

Although not an outright sports car, a week or so with the electrified crossover is enough to confirm that we spent a large majority of the time burying the throttle on some of the more technical roads found on our travels.

Creating an electric car that looks great and boasts a truly useable range is one thing, but injecting some serious grin-inducing driving dynamics into the package in another. Perhaps more importantly, the levels of refinement and noise suppression are also excellent, and the I-Pace's manners on the motorway are impeccable, with very little wind or road noise leaking into the cabin.

Admittedly, the enormous 20-inch alloy wheels can make the ride slightly harsh over particularly rutted roads, but that's natural given the lack of rubber, and there are 18-inch versions available for those who favour comfort over style.

Verdict

Leon Poultney


After a couple of weeks with the I-Pace, its initial special glow had faded, but that's not to say our opinions of it lowered. Something that began as new, shiny and exciting soon became a tool that we could use every day, from tackling the early morning nursery run in pre-cooled comfort, to hammering the motorways to make numerous business meetings and engagements.

The fact that the initial excitement of having an electric Jaguar on the driveway ebbed is testament to what the British marque has created here. This isn't a gimmick that's designed to crest the current wave of battery-powered motoring; it is a serious everyday proposition.