7 Things I Learned From Driving A Jaguar I-Pace Prototype

Tesla has done wonders for the once dreary image of electric cars, hasn’t it? Not so long ago an electric car to most people meant a pathetic ‘quadricycle’ concoction with a 40-mile range and all the desirability of a mouldy sandwich, but now there are at least a handful of EVs out there that we’d actually like to own. Or dream about, if you look at the likes of Rimac at the other end of the scale.

But it’s not enough: the mainstream manufacturers need to catch up, and thankfully they are doing. Curiously, it looks like Jaguar is in with a shout of beating all its mainstream rivals (BMW and its well-established i models aside) to the punch with the I-Pace. And after an early drive, we can give you some idea of what it’s like… with a few caveats we’ll have to throw your way.

“Hold on, I didn’t think Jaguar had even revealed that car yet?” you might be thinking. You’d be right - it’s not due to be revealed until just before the Geneva Motor Show on 1 March, so as such the prototype was still wearing camo outside and had much of its interior blanked off. Oh, and we were given precious little in the way of technical information to go with it. That’s caveat number one.

Caveat number two is the test drive location: Jaguar’s ice-based testing facility in Swedish Lapland - a bitterly cold, low-grip, drift-tastic wonderland that’s rather far removed from the kind of roads your average I-Pace buyer will be biffing about on.

But, we learned more than you might expect. Let me lay it on you…

It feels compact, even though it isn’t

When you give it a good ogle, the I-Pace doesn’t seem all that big, It doesn’t feel that big to drive around, either, but it turns out it’s actually the same sort of length as the F-Pace. It’s partly down to the small front overhang, made possible by the lack of a ruddy great engine living up there.

Packaging is efficient on the whole - 100kW-worth of battery cells live under the cabin floor (which is almost completely flat given the lack of transmission tunnel) for instance, and the in-house-developed motors are of a ‘permanent magnet’ design. These units are more expensive to make, but benefit from being much more compact. That means it feels nice and roomy up front, although legroom in the back is best described as ‘adequate’ rather than generous.

You won’t want for performance

It’s hard to get a handle on exactly how fast the I-Pace is for two reasons: firstly we don’t know how powerful it is, and secondly the low traction surface of an ice lake doesn’t exactly lend itself to greedy moments with the right-hand pedal.

But we do know the powertrain has stayed very close to the concept, which means two electric motors producing roughly 200bhp apiece. One powers the front axle, the other powers the rear.

Circa 400bhp isn’t enough of an output to worry something like a Tesla Model X P100D, but on the moments that allowed for at least a moderate prod of the throttle, the I-Pace picked up quickly and effortlessly.

It probably won’t become a YouTube drag race hero any time soon, but for the real world it’ll have all the straight-line thrust you’d ever need, and then some.

It can drift

Yes, we’re going to talk about the handling via something most I-Pace owners won’t do (power sliding) on a surface that almost no I-Pace owners will ever put a tyre on (a specially-prepared ice lake). But stick with us, as lobbing this ‘leccy Jag around taught us quite a lot.

Making any car drift on an ice lake track is easy enough, but even so, I was surprised by just how effortless the I-Pace makes sideways shenanigans. You’d think with two electric motors kicking out the same power it’d have a tendency to go into four-wheel slides that don’t require a whole lot of opposite lock, but you’d be wrong.

It has what’s best thought of as a ‘virtual driveline’, with the car’s brain shifting the power balance from front to rear as necessary. And when you’re mucking around, it seems it deems sending a lot to the rear as ‘necessary’. What’s more, the power is shuffled around smoothly and incredibly quickly. Plus, there’s a torque vectoring by braking system for the rear axle. If this powertrain does end up stuffed into the innards of the next XJ saloon, we won’t mind at all.

Fast and predicable steering, meanwhile, makes catching and maintaining slides easy and fun. It doesn’t feel heavy or clumsy to lob around, partly thanks to that ‘layer’ of batteries giving it a 120mm-lower centre of gravity than an F-Pace.

Unlike in most other Jaguar products, the ESP system cannot be turned fully off. But, in its most disengaged setting, whatever it’s doing is extremely subtle, because I’ll be damned if I could tell what the system was up to. It’s certainly doing something, as you can really take liberties with your throttle and steering inputs without spinning out.

It could ride firmly on the road

Yes, yes, I know - this is something we really can’t tell properly without actually going on - you know - a road. But having driven an F-Pace on the same ice track earlier that day, the I-Pace does seem to have a firmer, more sporting setup in comparison. It certainly doesn’t roll all that much when being put through fast changes of direction.

Windy conditions on the day created random, oddly placed, surprisingly hard and compacted deposits of snow on the test tracks, over which the I-Pace didn’t exactly float.

Charging takes as little as 45 minutes

One of the few bits of technical information we were given related to charging times - the I-Pace’s 100kW of batteries can be juiced from 0-80 per cent in 45 minutes. That’s only a little longer than plug-in hybrids take to give you 30-40 miles of EV range. Proportionally, the final 20 per cent takes a bit longer. The catch? You’ll only be able to get those kind of times from a public charger with a 100kW capacity, and in the UK there aren’t many of those knocking around (yet).

On the subject of the batteries, you might wonder how well the I-Pace’s pack gets on in an environment where minus 20 degrees centigrade temperatures are a common occurrence. The answer? Just fine. So long the car is ‘pre-conditioned’ while still plugged in (something you’ll be able to set up as a daily ‘routine’ via a mobile app, because remembering things sucks), Jaguar’s boffins claim the difference to range is barely noticeable.

The interior should be a departure for Jaguar

Hold onto your hats, people - Jaguar has finally decided it’s done pedalling that F-Type steering wheel. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine design, but it’s not as special as it used to be since it’s been around so long, and since it’s now even in the baby E-Pace.

Other than the steering wheel much of the interior was hidden, but the heavily raked centre console is clear to see, and the gear selector is neither one of Jag’s rotary jobbies nor an F-Type-style pistol grip item. Instead, I-Pace gets a column of buttons at the base of the centre console.

An engine-less future needn't be boring

It’s impossible to come up with a firm conclusion about driving a car from an environment like an ice lake. If you want to read a proper review of the I-Pace, well, you’ll have to wait until we get our hands on one for a proper drive later in the year.

After this taster though, the I-Pace is looking very promising. It shows not just that Jaguar has screwed together what we’re expecting to be a compelling electric car, but also that our inevitably electrified future isn’t necessarily going to be boring. And that’s a damn good thing.