Jaguar I-Pace

[Wing Commander]

£89k - blimey!

Think I’d save a few more pennies and get a Taycan!

[johnd]

Think I’d save a few more pennies and get a Taycan!

I-Pace is expensive but you really don't have to spend £89K (presumably before the government sub) - must have been quite highly optioned. And to a first approximation: Taycan = 911/Panamera cross and I-Pace = Macan, so depends whether you want/need a large high performance 4-seat sports car or mid-sized SUV type.

More definitive I-Pace range figures are still awaited but best informed guess is 200-220 miles with press-on driving but not constant use of max acceleration. Likely that the demo car still had beta software - a major update is imminent apparently but not yet released AFAIK, which should improve responsiveness, menu structure etc.

[VanB]

My only experience of modern Jags is my sister's F-Pace which I find supremely uncomfortable with hard seats and a crashy ride. I think Jag have done a fine job bringing the I-Pace to market and the more mainstream manufacturers there are developing this technology the better but they all have a long way to go before they can catch Tesla up in terms of technological development and I wouldnt be too keen on a x.1 version from anyone including Porsche

[jesim1]

I went for a test drive in one today, so here are a few points I noticed purely from my perspective - right/wrong/indifferent, it does not matter, it's just a few thoughts on the drive and car:

It was the SE model, 402bhp I think, and a price tag of £68k before the £5k government grant, so by the time you put the on the road charges on its basically a £65k car to drive away - so not cheap.

Concerningly it was fully charged at 100%, but showing only 197 miles of range on what is advertised as a 300 mile car? The salesman explained this was due to the way the car used previous drives to calculate the range in real life, but after an hours test and about 30 miles of mixed driving it dropped by another 50 miles of range, which to me means I used about a 1/4 of it's battery in just over an hour - or about 1.5 gallons of petrol in an equivalent Macan turbo!

I liked the styling, it's half way between a saloon and an SUV, so for me it's easier to get in and out without having as much bulk as a Macan or an F pace, and still has a decent boot, not as wide as a Macan, but deeper to look at and plenty of room for passengers. This does mean though the very small rear window get's covered in rain and is partially obscured as there is no rear wiper.

The interior was airy, but the pano roof was fixed, but brightened the interior up even on a dull day - not sure I'd spring £900 for a fixed one though? I felt they would have been better putting a large black solar panel on the roof - or maybe that is just me?

I was not overly impressed with some of the touch screen controls, some of which appeared to lock up on me - but could just have been me not knowing what I was doing with them? But they did seem a bit small and were causing me to take my attention off the road, which is not so good. The sat nav was very wide, but not very deep - think letterbox shape, and then think why did they do it so narrow - as you don't drive sideways, you go forward, but your view forward is very limited? The Macan version is smaller width wise but better proportioned so fells better - so overall not really impressed with the touch and feel of the controls. I also felt some of the plastics were cheap and nasty for what is supposed to be a premium car, the last Jag XJ I had a few years ago was better put together and felt a nicer place to be.

The car had 20" alloys and rode well on them, it was a slightly softer ride, but quite "Jaguar", fairly sporty without being "crashy", it was fine about town and handles speed bumps well. I was not hounding it out in the country as it was raining and I was able to spin the wheels under hard acceleration on the straights, so it felt grippy without having the chance to explore this much, I think it would be fine in the dry.

Talking of the performance, the acceleration was very good and linier all the way up past three figures, instant on the throttle, and great for mid range overtaking which on full throttle only needed to be held for 3 or 4 seconds to have you gaining 30 to 50mph and quickly putting anything in the rear view mirror - which was restricted by very poor rear view out of the back window - a great case for having a rear facing camera in place of the mirror. (which it does not have by the way)

The performance "maps" for comfort/dynamic/winter and eco (I think?) did make a difference by softening the throttle response. If you accelerated in "winter" and then tried "dynamic" you could feel the extra power and more immediate response, I'd also say you didn't have to press the pedal as hard for the same performance. These seem a good idea for a car which could get an inexperienced driver into trouble very easy, in real life I'd probably just leave it in comfort and drive according to conditions, and EV lends itself to this.

The car was not a lot quieter than my Macan on the road - it was obviously quieter puling away, but by the time you got to 40mph the tyre noise was as loud as it is in the Macan, and I can't hear my engine at that speed unless I'm putting the foot down, so I felt fine with the noise levels and didn't feel it was an especially quite place to be while at speed, more like just what I'm used to?

So overall I think this is a nice car, but not worth the money compared to a Macan turbo, which has similar, though not identical (obviously), performance. I am still not convinced you can have this as a one car family - for day to day trips and charging overnight it would be fine, or if your in London with the congestion charge it probably makes financial sense?, but if you wanted to do a couple of hundred miles in one day you will have to find a charger to accommodate this - which currently is a pain due to availability and charge times in comparison to 5 mins at the petrol station and on you go. I hate to think what will happen to the battery in winter when all the electronics start to get used to there potential - anything that makes heat burns through batteries quickly, so a couple of hours in start stop traffic could be a big drain. I drive 220 miles to Scotland a few times a year - and I doubt this car would make it, not without getting me anxious at least. Add this to the potential for a crash in resale further down the line due to battery degradation and I don't think these are yet a sensible option, for me at least. After three years I'd expect 60% back on the Porsche, and probably 40% after 6 years - by that time you could be looking to replace the batteries within a few years as they only have an 8 year warranty, and then it's "allowed" to lose performance due to wear and tear - so could mean by the time it's 8/9 years old it's worthless due to the replacement costs of the batteries - how much is an 8 year old Porsche still worth?

I'm sure that EVs are the way ahead, and all the major manufacturers are buying into this and producing them as you read this, but I'll wait another couple of years before revisiting this. Jaguar have done a great job to be the first real world EV I've even considered going to try, and I take my hat off to their achievements, but I want a longer real world battery life, quicker charging, and a lower purchase price - which for now is still just a pipe dream.

James

[Wing Commander]

Very detailed review, James. Thanks for taking the time.

[SAC1]

Well said James; my thoughts are very similar to your more detailed report.

[Deleted User 1874]

Concerningly it was fully charged at 100%, but showing only 197 miles of range on what is advertised as a 300 mile car? The salesman explained this was due to the way the car used previous drives to calculate the range in real life, but after an hours test and about 30 miles of mixed driving it dropped by another 50 miles of range, which to me means I used about a 1/4 of it's battery in just over an hour - or about 1.5 gallons of petrol in an equivalent Macan turbo!

What you find in practice with EVs is that the range on short local trips (blasts) appears to be very low, but when you actually do a long distance continuous trip then you get much better results (not so dissimilar to an ICE, you are simply more aware of it because of the lower range reported on the dash). For example my Model X has a real world range of 200 miles and can comfortably achieve that on a long motorway trip averaging 70-75 mph. But if I'm blasting around the local roads doing 20 miles here, 20 miles there with stops in-between then the range typically comes down to around 120 miles. But the key thing to note is that range is never a real issue unless you are making long distance trips, in which case you will achieve decent consumption figures. I expect the iPace with its 90 kWh battery (mine is only 75 kWh) will easily achieve a 250 mile range and if it doesn't then Jaguar still have some work to do! A Tesla Model S 90D is good for nearly 300 miles at legal motorway speeds and 250 miles would be a breeze for it. Your 220 mile drive to Scotland would be no sweat and zero fuel cost! I think the iPace will do it easily too, but you'd have to battle with the Leafs, Zoes, i3s and PHEVs for public chargers

[Deleted User 1874]

42 hours to fully charge on a domestic charger or 14 hours on a fast charger was quoted.

A standard 8 kW domestic charger would take it from 0-90 kWh in just over 11 hours (unless the Jag charging system is compromised?). But most of the time you would be just topping up from typically 20-80%, which would take about 6 or 7 hours max. IME very convenient for overnight charging. The problem (as you have stated many, many, many times) is if you don't have access to a domestic charger. Then the whole EV thing suddenly becomes a PITA. Not always totally impossible, but certainly inconvenient. Some people might get by quite happily with a dedicated work charger, but having to rely 100% on public charging would be a disaster. For me that's a very last resort charging method and so far never had to use one in the Tesla. I do maybe 98% of my charging at home and the rest on Tesla Superchargers (which make long haul drives pretty effortless).

[johnd]

What you find in practice with EVs is that the range on short local trips (blasts) appears to be very low...

I'm struggling to understand why that should be the case though. There's no inefficiency due to a cold engine as with ICE which obviously hits the mpg on short journeys. And shorter journeys eg around town are typically lower speed journeys.

Is it simply that longer journeys typically involve much more cruising at a steady speed and that it's the acceleration that hits the power consumption hard (with only limited mitigation from regen?)? So any journey that doesn't involve a substantial proportion of steady speed is going to knock back the range quite substantially?

[Deleted User 1874]

What you find in practice with EVs is that the range on short local trips (blasts) appears to be very low...

I'm struggling to understand why that should be the case though. There's no inefficiency due to a cold engine as with ICE which obviously hits the mpg on short journeys. And shorter journeys eg around town are typically lower speed journeys.

Is it simply that longer journeys typically involve much more cruising at a steady speed and that it's the acceleration that hits the power consumption hard (with only limited mitigation from regen?)? So any journey that doesn't involve a substantial proportion of steady speed is going to knock back the range quite substantially?

No, you do actually use up quite a lot of energy in heating/cooling the battery/cabin and it's not insignificant on short trips, especially in winter, not so much in summer. On EV forums they call it the "departure tax". You are right about longer trips being inherently more efficient, that was my point really. Thrashing around locally * involves a lot of acceleration tests! One bonus with EVs is that they are massively more efficient than ICE in traffic jams. On a long trip if you get stuck in a long motorway jam your range actually increases as you crawl along at a much lower speed.

After a while you simply don't bother looking at the range numbers unless you are travelling long haul and it really matters. On a 15 mile local trip from cold I can easily consume 450 Wh/mile, while consuming 330 Wh/mile over a 100 mile motorway trip on the same day. So in other words that's a max range difference of 160-220 miles right there.

*note I live in a rural setting, so very little town driving. My local driving is pretty quick. You may well get different results pottering around town, but the "departure tax" is a real thing.