Jaguar Has Destroyed 150 Prototypes By Extreme-Testing The New E-Pace

Jaguar has burned through 150 prototypes as part of the development process of a new compact SUV.

Called the E-Pace, its various development mules have gone through temperatures as high as 48 Celsius and as low as -40 Celsius, and it looks like the death toll was pretty high. That’s all part of new vehicle testing, though. If you don’t break it, you’re not trying hard enough…

Based on an existing JLR platform but sized to sit a class below the F-Pace, the E-Pace has been testing for over two years, spanning 120,000 hours of camouflaged real-world running and test bench prodding. As part of that, the hybrid SUV made time for over 400 laps of the Nurburgring. As you do.

Thanks to some, err, unconventional testing techniques, the engineers also know that you can leave it in 50cm-deep water with the doors open for an hour and still start it and drive it away. The carpets probably aren’t going to be okay after that, mind you.

Autocar says the E-Pace will be priced from £28,500 – the same as a BMW X1 and a gnat’s wing less than an entry-grade Audi Q3. Expect the engines to be familiar, and we understand that there will be manual and automatic versions. It will be formally launched next week, on the evening of 13 July.