Jaguar I-Pace review: A great car – within limits

The Jaguar I-Pace is Ferrari fast, and then some. Better than a Tesla? Yes. But when it comes to battery life, it’s pathetic.

Jaguar I-Pace

A few years ago the people at Jaguar got it into their heads that they wanted to part company with their rather caddish customer base, with its gin and tonics and dodgy import-export ventures. So Jaguar stopped making comfortable, quiet and pretty cars and concentrated on small, shouty sports saloons.

There must have been a reason for this. You don’t abandon an image built up over many careful years on a whim. But whatever the reason, it hasn’t worked. Because if someone wants a small, shouty sports saloon, they’re going to buy a BMW.

The new Jags were lovely to drive but they felt and sounded wrong. Imagine going into a McDonald’s and finding linen tablecloths and Pachelbel on the sound system. It’s not what you were expecting. In a Jag you want a wooden dashboard and soft leather seats. You want to start the engine and think: “Wait a minute. Is it broken?” Silence and smoothness is key. But you want good looks as well. For me, the series 3 XJ12 on pepper-pot alloys was peak Jag.

And now, I’m delighted to say, it’s back in the shape of the I-Pace, which is very pretty and can be ordered with a wooden dashboard and squidgy leather seats. And it’s quiet. Really quiet. It’s a mouse tiptoeing over a bed of kapok, in carpet slippers. The reason is there’s no engine and only one gear because the I-Pace is electric.

I drove around London in the I-Pace for a few days and it was just so relaxing. It glided over potholes and speed humps and wafted down Park Lane like a swan. Later I went out of town and found that on wet roads the four-wheel-drive grip was so leechy you end up looking like Snoopy, with both eyes on one side of your face. On dry roads you have the confidence to put your foot down and, yup, it does that electric thing of accelerating so violently your head feels as though it’s coming away. Off the line the I-Pace is Ferrari fast, and then some. Better than a Tesla? Yes. Definitely. The I-Pace is a car you will want to buy because it’s pretty, comfortable, practical and sensible, but mostly because the electric powertrain makes it feel so very Jaggish. And oh how I wish I could leave it there. But I can’t.

It’s claimed that the range of the Jag is 480km. I’m sure that’s possible, but there’s a big gap between what’s possible and what’s achievable. I left London on a Friday afternoon with four passengers and a full boot. The range-ometer said I’d go 190km before a charge was necessary, and that, I figured, was easily enough to cover the 110km to my gaff in the country. But as we barrelled up the M40, the readout started to tumble like the altimeter in a crashing airliner. And then there was a crash. Two cars. Six fire engines. Long queues. Down came the readout, and down and down, until by the time I got to Oxford there was a danger it’d conk out before I got home. And then we’d have to download an app and fathom the instructions at the charging point and sit in the cold for 40 minutes while the battery drank power.

I was panicking about that so I put everything in Eco mode – I even turned on the system that garners battery power from braking, even though this makes the car nigh-on undriveable. I made it home with 22 units left on the clock, plugged the car into the power supply and – pfff – all the lights went out. Yup. It tripped the fuse box. Very annoyed, I took it into town and plugged it into a friend’s house. The next morning, after eight hours of suckling from the grid, it had hoovered up enough electricity to go… 47km. That’s pathetic.

I know I could have taken it to a fast-charge point and sat while it was force-fed some joules, but I had friends staying and didn’t want to waste a precious weekend off by pandering to the whim of a polar bear. So I didn’t. Which meant that for the Sunday evening crawl back to London I used my old Range Rover.

Of course the Jag will work if you only commute between fast-charge points at your home and office. If that’s your life, it’s a great car and you should buy one immediately. If, however, you have relatives and friends who live far away, and you have rich and varied weekends, full of spontaneity and let’s-go-to-the-seaside moments, it’s still great. But you’ll need another car as well.

Jaguar I-Pace

Driveline: Two electric motors (294kW/696Nm); 90kWh lithium ion battery pack. Range up to 480km

Transmission: Single-speed, all-wheel drive

Price: From $119,000

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars