Jaguar I-PACE First Drive _ Fully Charged

**Jaguar I-Pace: A Deep Dive into Its Design, Engineering, and Performance**

We’re at Geneva Airport in Switzerland when a car park right next to the airport where the Jaguar I-Pace has been put through its paces. Sorry about the pun—someone’s giving it beans behind me, but this is the first time the world's media has actually got to drive this car. The Jaguar team has put an awful lot of effort into this; they’ve done over 1.5 million real-world miles, with over 200 prototypes flying around. They’ve tested it in temperatures ranging from plus 40 Celsius to minus 40, and they’re taking this car very seriously.

Tesla’s Model X is already out there, a vastly more expensive car that starts from fifty-nine thousand pounds and goes up to about seventy-five thousand pounds. But this is an exciting time because Tesla has stolen the limelight for fast, luxurious, unbeatable electric cars. However, Tesla is a tech company first and a car company second. Meanwhile, Jaguar, Mercedes, BMW, and Audi have been making cars for eight, nine, or ten decades—they know how to build a car really well. While Tesla may have struggled with quality control and production speed, these traditional manufacturers are stepping up with their own electric vehicles.

The I-Pace is one such vehicle, and we’re here to explore its true Jaguar DNA. Known for its sports cars and sports saloons—cars that can go fast in a straight line but are also very agile—the I-Pace aims to combine that agility with the refined smoothness Jaguar is famous for. This car is about more than just performance; it’s about delivering on the brand’s legacy of luxury and precision.

The world of electric vehicles (EVs) is at an interesting point, with mainstream manufacturers like Porsche, Mercedes, and Jaguar pressing forward with credible projects. The I-Pace is part of this wave, alongside cars like the Porsche Mission E, Audi E-Tron, and Mercedes EQ lineup. These platforms will no doubt be used for other models in the next 12 to 18 months, marking a new era of innovation.

### A Glimpse into the Future: The Jaguar I-Pace

This is a very brief first drive of a production-ready car. We’re doing something called a "smart comb test," essentially a very short shot agility test—not on the road but in a structured way. The driver navigates through green flattened cones, with blue ones appearing to the left. It’s like a game, but the focus is on the car’s response.

The I-Pace accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in just over four and a half seconds, and while there were some minor cone mishaps, the car’s performance was impressive. With over 2.1 tonnes of weight and high-powered systems, it handles with surprising agility. The driver notes that despite its electric nature, the I-Pace has a unique character that sets it apart from other EVs.

### Under the Hood: Engineering Excellence

The I-Pace is built predominantly from aluminum—94% aluminum in its body structure, which is the most aluminum content in any production Jaguar to date. This material choice provides stiffness and strength, crucial for dynamic capability. The car’s construction uses aerospace bonding and riveting techniques, ensuring a robust frame.

At the front, the I-Pace features a two-motor setup: one on the front axle and one on the rear. The motor is designed with a concentric layout, allowing the drive shaft to pass straight through it. This design helps keep the motor lightweight (about 78 kilograms) and compact (around 500 millimeters long). Efficiency is key here, with the motor delivering over 95% efficiency between 30 km/h and 50 km/h—a figure that even some competitors struggle to match.

The inverter controls the flow of power from the battery to the motor, regulating torque demand. On top of this, there’s an onboard charger connected to the charge port. The thermal scavenging system is another highlight—using heat exchanges and pumps to scavenge energy from the front of the car, even in freezing temperatures. This system can provide up to 2.5 times the energy it scavenges to the battery, helping maintain range in cold conditions.

The battery pack itself consists of 36 modules, each containing 12 cells, for a total of 432 cells. These nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) cells deliver around 450 volts when fully charged. The modularity of this system allows it to be used across different vehicle platforms, whether two-wheel or four-wheel drive.

### Thermal Management and Energy Efficiency

Thermal management is critical for battery performance. Batteries prefer operating in a narrow temperature range (20-25°C), and the I-Pace’s thermal scavenging system ensures they stay within this range even in extreme conditions. By scavenge energy from the front of the car, the system compresses it and uses it to benefit the battery—a process akin to a heat pump.

This system is not just for the battery; it also benefits the cabin by using motor-generated heat. The driver notes that regenerative braking can handle up to 98% of all customer braking situations, making single-pedal driving possible without pressing the brake pedal. This reduces wear on brake pads and enhances efficiency.

### Interior Design: Luxury Meets Functionality

Inside the I-Pace, the focus is on comfort and technology. The driver’s seat controls are intuitive, with a push-pull thumb wheel for easy adjustment while driving. The infotainment system features two touchscreens and a full instrument cluster, with optional heads-up display. The interior is designed to be user-friendly, allowing drivers to access climate control, entertainment, and navigation without distraction.

The I-Pace’s interior space is another highlight. With a cab-forward design, occupants are positioned further apart, offering more knee room and a sense of spaciousness. The panoramic glass roof adds to the airy feel, making the cabin feel even larger. Boot space is impressive at 656 liters, with additional under-floor storage for smaller items.

### Exterior Design: Breaking the Mold

The I-Pace’s design challenges traditional SUV aesthetics. While it offers the ground clearance and practicality of an SUV, its sleek lines and cab-forward styling make it look more like a luxury sedan than a typical SUV. The front grille, with its depth and character, is inspired by Jaguar’s classic XJ6, while the floating spoiler at the rear adds a touch of aerodynamic efficiency.

The design team aimed to create something that couldn’t be easily categorized—a car that defies traditional styling rules. This radical approach sets it apart in a market filled with familiar shapes. The result is a car that feels as much like a luxury sports sedan as it does an SUV, blending performance and practicality seamlessly.

### On the Road: A Driver’s Perspective

Taking the I-Pace for a spin reveals its true potential. With optional air suspension, the driver can adjust the height by 90 millimeters—lowering it at high speeds for efficiency or raising it for off-roading. The interior is equipped with buttons for terrain response and traction control, making it adaptable to various driving conditions.

The car’s performance on tight corners is impressive, with flat body control that ensures precision handling. The optional air suspension enhances this experience, providing a smooth ride even on uneven surfaces. The steering wheel feels sporty, and the overall driving dynamics are a testament to Jaguar’s engineering prowess.

### Conclusion: A New Era for Electric Vehicles

The I-Pace represents a convergence of traditional automotive expertise and cutting-edge electric vehicle technology. While Tesla has led the charge in the EV market, cars like the I-Pace bring decades of experience in design, engineering, and quality control to the table. This competition is not just beneficial for consumers; it pushes both established brands and newcomers to innovate faster and deliver better products.

For Jaguar, the I-Pace is a bold statement—a luxurious, high-performance EV that doesn’t compromise on style or practicality. It’s a car that feels as much like a modern-day sports sedan as it does an SUV, blending innovation with tradition in a way only Jaguar can.

As we look to the future of electric vehicles, the I-Pace sets a new standard for what mainstream manufacturers can achieve. Whether it’s its advanced thermal management system, sleek design, or driving dynamics, this car is a testament to the potential of electric vehicles—and a reminder that the best is yet to come in the world of EVs.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwe're at Geneva Airport in Switzerland when a car park right next to the airport where the Jaguar type ace has been put through its paces sorry about the pun you kidding is someone giving it beans behind me but this is the first time the world's media has actually got to drive this car jag I've put an awful lot of effort into this they've done over 1.5 million real-world miles there's over 200 prototypes flying around they've tested it in plus 40 Celsius minus 40 or sales is they're taking this car very seriously and bear in mind they've beaten the likes of Audi BMW and Mercedes to the production pure SUV market Tesla's already out there with the Model X which is a vastly more expensive car that starts from fifty nine thousand pounds goes up to about 75,000 pounds there's another one and this is an exciting time because Tesla have obviously stolen the limelight for a kind of fast luxurious unbeatable electric cars but Tesla are a tech company first two soft car companies second really the likes of Jaguar and Mercedes and all the others have been making cars for like eight nine ten decades and that's the thing they know how to build a car really well Tesla has almost become a victim of his own success lately where it's got a good product but it can't make it quick enough and it's suffering from quality control jag and Mercedes anti Audi and BMW and all the others that are coming in now these guys know how to build a car they know how to put together a beautiful interior so we're actually going to see this interesting point of convergence I think Tesla are going to learn very quickly how to mass-produce a car with decent quality control and these guys and know how to do good battery tech good real-world range and good evey good evey performance what I'm interested in with the jagai pace today is although I'm going to get a little tiny Drive I want to know if this guy's true Jaguar DNA and by that what I mean is Jaguar is known for its sports cars and its sports saloons so cars that can go fast in a straight line but they're also very very agile and agility is something that a lot of v's on on sale now don't actually and the other thing about Jags is they're refined it can be smooth they can be really serene you got that waft ability with a huge amount of clout and that's what I hope the IPAs will deliver I feel like we're at a really interesting point in the world of Evie where mainstream manufacturers are about to press the button on some really big projects some really credible card in a Porsche with its mission e howdy with its e-tron range Mercedes with its EQ jag with the AI pace and this platform will no doubt be used on another car in the next 12 to 18 months so these are really exciting times and this is friendly competition really it means Tesla will step up even more it means these guys will work even harder so for Evie people like you and I this is only it's only going to be good news and it'll also mean that more people will buy it which means the infrastructure will get better which is like a win-win right oh hustling along life in it all right wearing the ipace this is a very brief first drive of a production-ready car we're doing something called a smart comb test essentially a very short shot agility test there's not proper road test is not on the road I'll explain more in a minute so we just go do it we can go the green they're going to flash me don't really know how to do this I normally just drive fast around a car park in randomize at a car park in a structured way so I've gonna go through those green flattened cones there yeah look see the blue ones there to your left they're gonna be your next set those ones that were blue are now green it's just like a game I've never played a game o.o the fitness game not with a girl's game this game now this is cunning because i'm i'm concentrating more on cones and i am on the chassis of the i play but I love the response obviously four and a half seconds to 60 if I just missed that completely I thought I went through a pair of cones that wasn't actually a pair of cones little bit of a wine off the motors it's good obviously the thing about electric cars is they carry a bit of bolt this is over 2.1 tonnes with a high-powered region you can pool hustling quite well really well actually that's rare does that mean definitely don't go through Red Wings game is over oh wow I'm here with Ian hope and Ian Johnny you are remind me of your title you're basically the man that didn't shape the car I didn't shape the car that was mr. Callen I started it the other end that's right so I'm the vehicle and director so really lucky to lead the team of engineers who put their heart and soul into delivering this car we've got this awesome cutaway I'm a big fan of cutaways because it explains so much really quickly but let's talk about a first its construction the body shell and the chassis okay so predominantly aluminium 94% aluminium is the body structure which is actually the most aluminium content in a production Jaguar 94% 94% pretty good so an aluminium is great you know it's like it's very stiff as well but it's important to use the right type of aluminium in the right place these are structural castings yet the turrets here this about suspension here so these are the nodes the structural nodes of the car and it's really important to have a great level of stiffness here that helps us give the car it's dynamic capability so our stiffness here means when you put a steering input into the car the car changes direction really quickly this is not a welded car riveted it's relative and bonded aerospace aerospace bonding and riveting are the two construction techniques we use right and then right at the front here is one of two hearts it's a two motor car that's right an electric motor on the front axle and one on the rear and we're quite proud of the motor it's got a concentric motor and the reason that's important is is the drive shaft actually goes straight through the motor I removed it yeah yeah and what's the reason for so it helps the motor be very lightweight so it's about 78 kilograms with the motor and the transmission okay more importantly it helps it be really compact so it's about 500 millimeters actually at about 250 millimeters in diameter so a motor like this will deliver about a 95 percent if that greater than 95 percent efficiency yeah not just high levels of efficiency but over a wide drive cycle or high levels of high range of speed so between about 30 kilometers an hour and 50 kilometers an hour this motor will deliver more than 95% efficiency motors are obviously very efficient yes some of the ones that are competition user perhaps in the 92 to 93 percent efficiency range the rare earth magnet PI's are particularly important part in terms of how we deliver that efficiency so on top of that motor we have yes on top of the motor we have the inverter yeah so that's the inverter which basically controls in between the battery and and controls the load into the motor and regulates the torque demand from the driver the end to the motor so that's the inverter and then on top of the inverter we have the onboard charger yes is the seventh floor onboard charger which you can see obviously is connected to the to the charge port yeah there's a good space here which presumably is for crash that's right that's right absolutely yeah yeah let's talk about thermal scavenging because it it's a term that you're gonna work it into the conversation how do I get in the conversation because I heard it I saw it in a press release and I thought right thermal scavenging it's a great term to see us and also obviously we're in winter right now when evenings have a pretty tough time that's right talk me through it okay so batteries like us they look don't like to be too hot they don't like to be too cold so 20 25 degree C is fine as the ideal operating range for a battery and you've got what we'd like to us to keep the battery at that temperature range yeah so that's the first important part the other important part I guess in a constructive way it makes you as an engineer be paranoid about the energy that surrounds you how you use that energy and how you use it most efficiently so the thermal scavenging actually is even on a freezing morning the car can't using a series of heat exchanges and pumps can basically scavenge energy temperature and energy from the front of the car people often think that because it's freezing you can't get any any any more energy but of course or on a Kelvin scale here even on the freezing morning you can still get energy out of the air actually use it to to provide energy to the battery so this is like a heat pump from a house similar prints achill e scavenging through a heat exchanger compressing it and then providing that energy to the battery and we estimate there's about two and a half times upgrade so a kilowatt of energy that's scavenged from the front of the car yup can benefit the battery by two-and-a-half kilowatts so it's a real important aspect of of how we maintain the range in all driving Maximizer sorry we didn't do that we estimate that perhaps you the customer might lose anything up to 50 kilometers of range which is a big deal yeah so it's important to use them most any order to maximize the usage of the energy that's around you okay it incidentally can also scavenge or benefit from some of the thermal thermal properties of the thermal energy of the the motors as well in the II do so even take some temperature from from there and again use that to eat the cabin and is that through that's through heat exchanging basically similar principle here this whole floor pan is your battery pack that gets bolted up under from underneath forms part of the structure forms the floor of the car a36 modules 36 modules so each one of these is the module yep and each module contains 12 packed cells yes 432 packed cells in total yep okay in the 36 modules that are within the frame yeah and these are how many volts each so these are nickel manganese cobalt packed cells a case of the O the overall voltage of the battery pack is 450 volts when it's fully charged around 450 volts yeah devising a system like this a floor pal much bolts in and out of a vehicle and the opportunity to go for wheel drive or two-wheel drive this could be put into a lot of other cars it's some I guess it's a very flexible is what you'd say so the basic principles the modularity principles are there for us to use in the future yeah yeah there's a bit of a radio for answer wasn't it that was quite radio for yeah sorry but I'll take it okay so now at the point where the driver and part is you're gonna sit about there the back seats kind of over the so that's the back that what we called it Becker but the battery the battery control module yes that sits on on top of the battery slowly yeah you can access it through through the underneath or a seat but probably more importantly that's one of the first modules to be what we call SOTA so software over-the-air okay so using our telematics module we can basically provide software updates to that module and the customer doesn't have to go to to a dealer to get it brilliant regions really important and I know regions come on a long way in evey productions you've got several stages of region it was to two stages of region high region and low region okay so we actually call it single pedal driving and yeah and it sounds a lot but it is really really ensures even when you've tried it on stage you really wouldn't want to go back basically when you with hide with high levels of Rage and you come off the of the accelerator pedal and the car velocity starts to slow down very quickly mmediately so it is dragging its brakes it physically but it's recuperating the energy through the brakes yes you entered it instantly out of the car so what's actually and we can deliver point up to point to G of braking force through that level of region it's a further point to G to make point for G in total when the customer she applies the brake as well but what's really important is that actually we've done some work and reckon around 98 percent of all customer breaking situations you can actually do by letting the car do regenerative braking without touching the brake that's what we call a single pedal and it is it's it's so is so intuitive and fact until then you can get through a whole test cycle emissions test test cycle again without pressing the brake pedal really so its benefits in terms of brake pad wear of your rate though I've not seen this against any other cars but to me this looks like a smaller car than an FP it's smaller than F pace yeah it's it's shorter than F pace but the real added benefit of a ground-up blank sheet of paper architecture is in the length right so in the length terms this car is 50 millimeters shorter 15 F pace yeah but in wheelbase terms 115 millimeters longer the real benefit is of course the the occupants base the interior space were liberating the cab forward design really enables us to position the occupants further apart and you know the knee room again is far more beneficial for for a car like they said the perception of space yeah on it on a Bev and electric vehicle is really well that's what I'm looking forward to as the driver you'll see there's much more of an airy cabin I know that there was there was talk about comparing it to a Porsche Cayenne is internal space Porsche Macan external domain that's right with it's within a millimeter McCann it's essentially the interior space is bigger than Akane that's impressive though I mean that's a possible a one segment bigger significant segment about yes right I guess that's where V's win absolutely absolutely yes in thank you so much for your time pleasure I love looking at cutting this is the Jaguar eye pace this is the man that led the team that made it look the way it does this is ian callum director of design for Jaguar a friend of mine hi in a journey you're right there are you could see it yeah I think likewise what interests me about this car firstly is it's classed as an SUV but I kind of don't see it as an SUV I guess in my head you think of SUVs has been quite brick e-square and it's not like that no I mean enough to be no we stood next to it it's it's higher you can obviously see it yeah there's a bit of you know ground clearance going on here but it's not your sort of archetypal no and you know it what I love about it is you can't really define the car you can't just slot it in the box and see that's what it is yeah and I love the notion that upsets some people but I do love the notion that you can't categorize it yeah you know it's a bit like music in America has to be categorized in there that suddenly something comes up something different and you can't categorize and get some people get upset so I like that being disruptive and it is technically an SUV SUV dimensions it can only do what they can do what SUV cars or trucks can do but I don't shaped more like a motor car for good reason yeah and that's aerodynamics I've just dropped a chapstick here however sorry it's never happened in an interview before actually while we're at the front this is probably the most familiar part of the car yeah yeah it was important a car is so different so many ways yes it's got the the voluptuous shapes of a Jag yeah that's like a cab forward shape yeah but it was important that we created something people recognized as today's jackieo we couldn't deviate too much away from it because people just wonder what it was yes it looks like a Jag so you've got the these sort of familiar frowning headlights the G a double J blade there's double J blades which is the sort of daytime running on of LEDs this shaped grille which we saw first of all in the xf xf and yeah yeah which is your office or first new generation wars and is inspired by the original xj6 that lovely square grill they insert into the sheet metal's luckily but did do that yes there is depth there you can probably see there is a there is definitely a depth into the grille it sort of stumps its in but then of course you the bonnet you've got this sort of quite defined haunch here and quite a short bonnet compared to what we used to sew the bonnet shot because there's only a small electric motor down there an inverter yeah and a charger so it doesn't have to be long there's no straight-6 engine in there any longer yeah so it can be shorter and be no reason to make it any other way you know it's a big absolutely honest about the car it's got to be about what the car stands for yeah but to get the drama out of the car if you look at the side view we put these haunches on it they're gonna throw the visual weight forward yeah so it looks like it's got this attitude a bit like a mid-engine sports car has you know it it kind of throws it for one hour it's doing that rather than the Hat exact okay okay yeah see I like the back of this because it's it's very unconventional for a jacket and it's very abrupt yeah airflow physics right so as the air comes off the roof we've designed this an angle doesn't need a wiper by the way because the hole here holds on to the profile all the way to the back right and then you get the breakaway in terms of aerodynamics on the square backend as you probably know the square of the back end on a car the better the Aero yeah which is something that Malcolm said didn't fully realize till they got to the X GS right okay interestingly yeah yeah so this is a floating spoiler floating spoiler which just helps to guide the air through this surface that's actually what it does right and in terms of downforce they get equal don't force between the front and the rear we put this little lip spoiler in which just adds a bit of perfect balance to the car when you knew that you were going to design an Eevee mmm were you a bit nervous were you thinking it might not be exciting enough for me well III didn't I felt very excited because I'd already had the kind of idea my own mind what we could do with it yeah beside you have a cab forward car yeah this is what I think very exciting I've always loved cab forward mid-engine sports cars I grew up with them when they were new to the world and it's just so I just saw this as a natural development of that yeah that train of thought and I didn't struggle with hurt Oh I knew other people might and something did but oh something's ray is radical you knew you would you could you would consider I consider this car to be radical its radical for the company yeah and it's ready to go in terms of its shape because it's not following any existing easy and shed I don't think but it's it but it has full integrity yeah you know it is very logical what we've done is entirely logical there's nothing mysterious or there is nothing contrived about it at all yeah it is the way it is for very good reason yeah we're loud now we've been permitted to get in another eye pace and do a little bit of a sort of straighter less frantic less cone orientated drive so I'm just gonna put it in D and release the handbrake and we're gonna go for a little spin now I've already put the heated seat on with this this nice tactile rotary control because that's the thing to remember this is called the flight deck jag called this the flight deck and what this is is you've got two touch screens here and then you've got a nice full instrument graphic screen here but they've decided to divide it between your more obvious day-to-day stuff like your seat controls with this push-pull really lovely little wheel thumb wheel here so while I'm driving and I don't want to take my eyes off the wheel I can do the climate control of stuff with relative ease but then you've got all the infotainment here which at the moment is showing graphics of like regen braking that kind of thing or your entertainment and it's swipe all the stuff you'd expect from a lot of car companies I've got my heads-up display here I've got the sort of deep-dish sporty three-spoke steering wheel which you've seen on other Jag models but what I'm really thinking about is the way it rides I've seen the way it goes around tight corners with the cones and the body control is very flat the test cars I'm driving have got the optional air suspension which you can adjust 90 millimeters in height so it sets it either goes 40 down or 50 up to do off-roading or it drops down at high speeds on the motorway for efficiency or when you get out the car so you don't have to climb up so high the other thing to bear in mind is you've got you down here on the right got actual buttons for your off-road capability your terrain response and your up and down and your traction control on the left here by my right by my right knee you got your transmission you drive your neutral you reverse your park got electric handbrake remember you got your release for the boot and your release for the front boots you've got a back boot and a fruit a front boot here I have to say what this car is I can tell even just by driving it quite slow speeds is this is a driver Z V and this is what interests me cuz there's a lot of V's out there which are perfect really for commuting and your sort of day-to-day grind and they might be lacking in a bit of engagement and a bit of real kind of chassis control playfulness what the ipace has got its got luxury and it's also got playfulness I'm excited by this because you know what I mean a fully electric car made by mainstream manufacturer who've been in business for 80-odd years and this is what I like this is the bit that the Tesla is missing don't you Mira I'm not talking about the technology I'm talking about the finish the quality the fit and the finish I have not seen this level of fit and finish in a fully v and this is where people like jag and Porsche will and mercedes-benz will and Audi they will be bringing this the stuff they've been building for decades to the fight with Tesla there's actually not enough time for me to explain how you can configure all of this because there's so much tech going on and there's so much integration with your smartphone and dedicated apps but basically you can have this instrument cluster in front of you as a full-width sat-nav and then you can throw some of that information down onto this screen here and then dumped here this one like I said before this is more about you sort of immediate day-to-day stuff like you comfort your heating your a/c and then you've got the transmission down here on this little wing drive neutral reverse Park but now I'm going to actually spend some time on the back right I'm now in the back I have a glamorous a system with me and your same height as me oh yeah yeah and this this seat is a is one of optional performance seats so it's it's shaped a bit more like a bucket seat with the standard seats also available so I'm sat behind the equivalent of myself in the car I got I got a ton of legroom it's got eight hundred and ninety Miller leg space which is a lot about loads of headroom this has got the panoramic glass roof which I always think is a worthwhile option because it's all opens up your world and then if the back seats were down boot space wise you've got nearly 1500 liters right I like the way it's packaged and I think that's a big deal when it comes to it SUVs because a lot of SUVs are big cars on the outside and not that impressive on the inside here's your six hundred and fifty-six litres of boot space and I think you've also got a little bit of added space on here like a little false floor they go look that's your kind of extra boot if you've completely filled that end so you can post soft sports bag in their gym kit that kind of stuff is the bonnet then can you see there it is there we go do you know what this badge is called janky we don't talk about it much but you know what this particular logo is with it it's called a growler but it's slightly better is the one at the back it's my favourite the one the one in the back that one the lovely kind of sculpt its muscular one that's called the leaper the leaper so on the front of the old jag you is it was the statue on the bonnet like the rolls-royce but the belief in cap that's the leaper the Front's the growler front growler back leaper there you go then the ipace a british designed Austrian built to motor or wheel drive 298 mile SUV that's pure Evie and luckily it doesn't look like an SUV it looks better than that I just hope this car drives on the road as good as it has done today and also I hope that Tesla learn as quickly as they have in the past about how to put a car together really well this is exciting times for either rightwe're at Geneva Airport in Switzerland when a car park right next to the airport where the Jaguar type ace has been put through its paces sorry about the pun you kidding is someone giving it beans behind me but this is the first time the world's media has actually got to drive this car jag I've put an awful lot of effort into this they've done over 1.5 million real-world miles there's over 200 prototypes flying around they've tested it in plus 40 Celsius minus 40 or sales is they're taking this car very seriously and bear in mind they've beaten the likes of Audi BMW and Mercedes to the production pure SUV market Tesla's already out there with the Model X which is a vastly more expensive car that starts from fifty nine thousand pounds goes up to about 75,000 pounds there's another one and this is an exciting time because Tesla have obviously stolen the limelight for a kind of fast luxurious unbeatable electric cars but Tesla are a tech company first two soft car companies second really the likes of Jaguar and Mercedes and all the others have been making cars for like eight nine ten decades and that's the thing they know how to build a car really well Tesla has almost become a victim of his own success lately where it's got a good product but it can't make it quick enough and it's suffering from quality control jag and Mercedes anti Audi and BMW and all the others that are coming in now these guys know how to build a car they know how to put together a beautiful interior so we're actually going to see this interesting point of convergence I think Tesla are going to learn very quickly how to mass-produce a car with decent quality control and these guys and know how to do good battery tech good real-world range and good evey good evey performance what I'm interested in with the jagai pace today is although I'm going to get a little tiny Drive I want to know if this guy's true Jaguar DNA and by that what I mean is Jaguar is known for its sports cars and its sports saloons so cars that can go fast in a straight line but they're also very very agile and agility is something that a lot of v's on on sale now don't actually and the other thing about Jags is they're refined it can be smooth they can be really serene you got that waft ability with a huge amount of clout and that's what I hope the IPAs will deliver I feel like we're at a really interesting point in the world of Evie where mainstream manufacturers are about to press the button on some really big projects some really credible card in a Porsche with its mission e howdy with its e-tron range Mercedes with its EQ jag with the AI pace and this platform will no doubt be used on another car in the next 12 to 18 months so these are really exciting times and this is friendly competition really it means Tesla will step up even more it means these guys will work even harder so for Evie people like you and I this is only it's only going to be good news and it'll also mean that more people will buy it which means the infrastructure will get better which is like a win-win right oh hustling along life in it all right wearing the ipace this is a very brief first drive of a production-ready car we're doing something called a smart comb test essentially a very short shot agility test there's not proper road test is not on the road I'll explain more in a minute so we just go do it we can go the green they're going to flash me don't really know how to do this I normally just drive fast around a car park in randomize at a car park in a structured way so I've gonna go through those green flattened cones there yeah look see the blue ones there to your left they're gonna be your next set those ones that were blue are now green it's just like a game I've never played a game o.o the fitness game not with a girl's game this game now this is cunning because i'm i'm concentrating more on cones and i am on the chassis of the i play but I love the response obviously four and a half seconds to 60 if I just missed that completely I thought I went through a pair of cones that wasn't actually a pair of cones little bit of a wine off the motors it's good obviously the thing about electric cars is they carry a bit of bolt this is over 2.1 tonnes with a high-powered region you can pool hustling quite well really well actually that's rare does that mean definitely don't go through Red Wings game is over oh wow I'm here with Ian hope and Ian Johnny you are remind me of your title you're basically the man that didn't shape the car I didn't shape the car that was mr. Callen I started it the other end that's right so I'm the vehicle and director so really lucky to lead the team of engineers who put their heart and soul into delivering this car we've got this awesome cutaway I'm a big fan of cutaways because it explains so much really quickly but let's talk about a first its construction the body shell and the chassis okay so predominantly aluminium 94% aluminium is the body structure which is actually the most aluminium content in a production Jaguar 94% 94% pretty good so an aluminium is great you know it's like it's very stiff as well but it's important to use the right type of aluminium in the right place these are structural castings yet the turrets here this about suspension here so these are the nodes the structural nodes of the car and it's really important to have a great level of stiffness here that helps us give the car it's dynamic capability so our stiffness here means when you put a steering input into the car the car changes direction really quickly this is not a welded car riveted it's relative and bonded aerospace aerospace bonding and riveting are the two construction techniques we use right and then right at the front here is one of two hearts it's a two motor car that's right an electric motor on the front axle and one on the rear and we're quite proud of the motor it's got a concentric motor and the reason that's important is is the drive shaft actually goes straight through the motor I removed it yeah yeah and what's the reason for so it helps the motor be very lightweight so it's about 78 kilograms with the motor and the transmission okay more importantly it helps it be really compact so it's about 500 millimeters actually at about 250 millimeters in diameter so a motor like this will deliver about a 95 percent if that greater than 95 percent efficiency yeah not just high levels of efficiency but over a wide drive cycle or high levels of high range of speed so between about 30 kilometers an hour and 50 kilometers an hour this motor will deliver more than 95% efficiency motors are obviously very efficient yes some of the ones that are competition user perhaps in the 92 to 93 percent efficiency range the rare earth magnet PI's are particularly important part in terms of how we deliver that efficiency so on top of that motor we have yes on top of the motor we have the inverter yeah so that's the inverter which basically controls in between the battery and and controls the load into the motor and regulates the torque demand from the driver the end to the motor so that's the inverter and then on top of the inverter we have the onboard charger yes is the seventh floor onboard charger which you can see obviously is connected to the to the charge port yeah there's a good space here which presumably is for crash that's right that's right absolutely yeah yeah let's talk about thermal scavenging because it it's a term that you're gonna work it into the conversation how do I get in the conversation because I heard it I saw it in a press release and I thought right thermal scavenging it's a great term to see us and also obviously we're in winter right now when evenings have a pretty tough time that's right talk me through it okay so batteries like us they look don't like to be too hot they don't like to be too cold so 20 25 degree C is fine as the ideal operating range for a battery and you've got what we'd like to us to keep the battery at that temperature range yeah so that's the first important part the other important part I guess in a constructive way it makes you as an engineer be paranoid about the energy that surrounds you how you use that energy and how you use it most efficiently so the thermal scavenging actually is even on a freezing morning the car can't using a series of heat exchanges and pumps can basically scavenge energy temperature and energy from the front of the car people often think that because it's freezing you can't get any any any more energy but of course or on a Kelvin scale here even on the freezing morning you can still get energy out of the air actually use it to to provide energy to the battery so this is like a heat pump from a house similar prints achill e scavenging through a heat exchanger compressing it and then providing that energy to the battery and we estimate there's about two and a half times upgrade so a kilowatt of energy that's scavenged from the front of the car yup can benefit the battery by two-and-a-half kilowatts so it's a real important aspect of of how we maintain the range in all driving Maximizer sorry we didn't do that we estimate that perhaps you the customer might lose anything up to 50 kilometers of range which is a big deal yeah so it's important to use them most any order to maximize the usage of the energy that's around you okay it incidentally can also scavenge or benefit from some of the thermal thermal properties of the thermal energy of the the motors as well in the II do so even take some temperature from from there and again use that to eat the cabin and is that through that's through heat exchanging basically similar principle here this whole floor pan is your battery pack that gets bolted up under from underneath forms part of the structure forms the floor of the car a36 modules 36 modules so each one of these is the module yep and each module contains 12 packed cells yes 432 packed cells in total yep okay in the 36 modules that are within the frame yeah and these are how many volts each so these are nickel manganese cobalt packed cells a case of the O the overall voltage of the battery pack is 450 volts when it's fully charged around 450 volts yeah devising a system like this a floor pal much bolts in and out of a vehicle and the opportunity to go for wheel drive or two-wheel drive this could be put into a lot of other cars it's some I guess it's a very flexible is what you'd say so the basic principles the modularity principles are there for us to use in the future yeah yeah there's a bit of a radio for answer wasn't it that was quite radio for yeah sorry but I'll take it okay so now at the point where the driver and part is you're gonna sit about there the back seats kind of over the so that's the back that what we called it Becker but the battery the battery control module yes that sits on on top of the battery slowly yeah you can access it through through the underneath or a seat but probably more importantly that's one of the first modules to be what we call SOTA so software over-the-air okay so using our telematics module we can basically provide software updates to that module and the customer doesn't have to go to to a dealer to get it brilliant regions really important and I know regions come on a long way in evey productions you've got several stages of region it was to two stages of region high region and low region okay so we actually call it single pedal driving and yeah and it sounds a lot but it is really really ensures even when you've tried it on stage you really wouldn't want to go back basically when you with hide with high levels of Rage and you come off the of the accelerator pedal and the car velocity starts to slow down very quickly mmediately so it is dragging its brakes it physically but it's recuperating the energy through the brakes yes you entered it instantly out of the car so what's actually and we can deliver point up to point to G of braking force through that level of region it's a further point to G to make point for G in total when the customer she applies the brake as well but what's really important is that actually we've done some work and reckon around 98 percent of all customer breaking situations you can actually do by letting the car do regenerative braking without touching the brake that's what we call a single pedal and it is it's it's so is so intuitive and fact until then you can get through a whole test cycle emissions test test cycle again without pressing the brake pedal really so its benefits in terms of brake pad wear of your rate though I've not seen this against any other cars but to me this looks like a smaller car than an FP it's smaller than F pace yeah it's it's shorter than F pace but the real added benefit of a ground-up blank sheet of paper architecture is in the length right so in the length terms this car is 50 millimeters shorter 15 F pace yeah but in wheelbase terms 115 millimeters longer the real benefit is of course the the occupants base the interior space were liberating the cab forward design really enables us to position the occupants further apart and you know the knee room again is far more beneficial for for a car like they said the perception of space yeah on it on a Bev and electric vehicle is really well that's what I'm looking forward to as the driver you'll see there's much more of an airy cabin I know that there was there was talk about comparing it to a Porsche Cayenne is internal space Porsche Macan external domain that's right with it's within a millimeter McCann it's essentially the interior space is bigger than Akane that's impressive though I mean that's a possible a one segment bigger significant segment about yes right I guess that's where V's win absolutely absolutely yes in thank you so much for your time pleasure I love looking at cutting this is the Jaguar eye pace this is the man that led the team that made it look the way it does this is ian callum director of design for Jaguar a friend of mine hi in a journey you're right there are you could see it yeah I think likewise what interests me about this car firstly is it's classed as an SUV but I kind of don't see it as an SUV I guess in my head you think of SUVs has been quite brick e-square and it's not like that no I mean enough to be no we stood next to it it's it's higher you can obviously see it yeah there's a bit of you know ground clearance going on here but it's not your sort of archetypal no and you know it what I love about it is you can't really define the car you can't just slot it in the box and see that's what it is yeah and I love the notion that upsets some people but I do love the notion that you can't categorize it yeah you know it's a bit like music in America has to be categorized in there that suddenly something comes up something different and you can't categorize and get some people get upset so I like that being disruptive and it is technically an SUV SUV dimensions it can only do what they can do what SUV cars or trucks can do but I don't shaped more like a motor car for good reason yeah and that's aerodynamics I've just dropped a chapstick here however sorry it's never happened in an interview before actually while we're at the front this is probably the most familiar part of the car yeah yeah it was important a car is so different so many ways yes it's got the the voluptuous shapes of a Jag yeah that's like a cab forward shape yeah but it was important that we created something people recognized as today's jackieo we couldn't deviate too much away from it because people just wonder what it was yes it looks like a Jag so you've got the these sort of familiar frowning headlights the G a double J blade there's double J blades which is the sort of daytime running on of LEDs this shaped grille which we saw first of all in the xf xf and yeah yeah which is your office or first new generation wars and is inspired by the original xj6 that lovely square grill they insert into the sheet metal's luckily but did do that yes there is depth there you can probably see there is a there is definitely a depth into the grille it sort of stumps its in but then of course you the bonnet you've got this sort of quite defined haunch here and quite a short bonnet compared to what we used to sew the bonnet shot because there's only a small electric motor down there an inverter yeah and a charger so it doesn't have to be long there's no straight-6 engine in there any longer yeah so it can be shorter and be no reason to make it any other way you know it's a big absolutely honest about the car it's got to be about what the car stands for yeah but to get the drama out of the car if you look at the side view we put these haunches on it they're gonna throw the visual weight forward yeah so it looks like it's got this attitude a bit like a mid-engine sports car has you know it it kind of throws it for one hour it's doing that rather than the Hat exact okay okay yeah see I like the back of this because it's it's very unconventional for a jacket and it's very abrupt yeah airflow physics right so as the air comes off the roof we've designed this an angle doesn't need a wiper by the way because the hole here holds on to the profile all the way to the back right and then you get the breakaway in terms of aerodynamics on the square backend as you probably know the square of the back end on a car the better the Aero yeah which is something that Malcolm said didn't fully realize till they got to the X GS right okay interestingly yeah yeah so this is a floating spoiler floating spoiler which just helps to guide the air through this surface that's actually what it does right and in terms of downforce they get equal don't force between the front and the rear we put this little lip spoiler in which just adds a bit of perfect balance to the car when you knew that you were going to design an Eevee mmm were you a bit nervous were you thinking it might not be exciting enough for me well III didn't I felt very excited because I'd already had the kind of idea my own mind what we could do with it yeah beside you have a cab forward car yeah this is what I think very exciting I've always loved cab forward mid-engine sports cars I grew up with them when they were new to the world and it's just so I just saw this as a natural development of that yeah that train of thought and I didn't struggle with hurt Oh I knew other people might and something did but oh something's ray is radical you knew you would you could you would consider I consider this car to be radical its radical for the company yeah and it's ready to go in terms of its shape because it's not following any existing easy and shed I don't think but it's it but it has full integrity yeah you know it is very logical what we've done is entirely logical there's nothing mysterious or there is nothing contrived about it at all yeah it is the way it is for very good reason yeah we're loud now we've been permitted to get in another eye pace and do a little bit of a sort of straighter less frantic less cone orientated drive so I'm just gonna put it in D and release the handbrake and we're gonna go for a little spin now I've already put the heated seat on with this this nice tactile rotary control because that's the thing to remember this is called the flight deck jag called this the flight deck and what this is is you've got two touch screens here and then you've got a nice full instrument graphic screen here but they've decided to divide it between your more obvious day-to-day stuff like your seat controls with this push-pull really lovely little wheel thumb wheel here so while I'm driving and I don't want to take my eyes off the wheel I can do the climate control of stuff with relative ease but then you've got all the infotainment here which at the moment is showing graphics of like regen braking that kind of thing or your entertainment and it's swipe all the stuff you'd expect from a lot of car companies I've got my heads-up display here I've got the sort of deep-dish sporty three-spoke steering wheel which you've seen on other Jag models but what I'm really thinking about is the way it rides I've seen the way it goes around tight corners with the cones and the body control is very flat the test cars I'm driving have got the optional air suspension which you can adjust 90 millimeters in height so it sets it either goes 40 down or 50 up to do off-roading or it drops down at high speeds on the motorway for efficiency or when you get out the car so you don't have to climb up so high the other thing to bear in mind is you've got you down here on the right got actual buttons for your off-road capability your terrain response and your up and down and your traction control on the left here by my right by my right knee you got your transmission you drive your neutral you reverse your park got electric handbrake remember you got your release for the boot and your release for the front boots you've got a back boot and a fruit a front boot here I have to say what this car is I can tell even just by driving it quite slow speeds is this is a driver Z V and this is what interests me cuz there's a lot of V's out there which are perfect really for commuting and your sort of day-to-day grind and they might be lacking in a bit of engagement and a bit of real kind of chassis control playfulness what the ipace has got its got luxury and it's also got playfulness I'm excited by this because you know what I mean a fully electric car made by mainstream manufacturer who've been in business for 80-odd years and this is what I like this is the bit that the Tesla is missing don't you Mira I'm not talking about the technology I'm talking about the finish the quality the fit and the finish I have not seen this level of fit and finish in a fully v and this is where people like jag and Porsche will and mercedes-benz will and Audi they will be bringing this the stuff they've been building for decades to the fight with Tesla there's actually not enough time for me to explain how you can configure all of this because there's so much tech going on and there's so much integration with your smartphone and dedicated apps but basically you can have this instrument cluster in front of you as a full-width sat-nav and then you can throw some of that information down onto this screen here and then dumped here this one like I said before this is more about you sort of immediate day-to-day stuff like you comfort your heating your a/c and then you've got the transmission down here on this little wing drive neutral reverse Park but now I'm going to actually spend some time on the back right I'm now in the back I have a glamorous a system with me and your same height as me oh yeah yeah and this this seat is a is one of optional performance seats so it's it's shaped a bit more like a bucket seat with the standard seats also available so I'm sat behind the equivalent of myself in the car I got I got a ton of legroom it's got eight hundred and ninety Miller leg space which is a lot about loads of headroom this has got the panoramic glass roof which I always think is a worthwhile option because it's all opens up your world and then if the back seats were down boot space wise you've got nearly 1500 liters right I like the way it's packaged and I think that's a big deal when it comes to it SUVs because a lot of SUVs are big cars on the outside and not that impressive on the inside here's your six hundred and fifty-six litres of boot space and I think you've also got a little bit of added space on here like a little false floor they go look that's your kind of extra boot if you've completely filled that end so you can post soft sports bag in their gym kit that kind of stuff is the bonnet then can you see there it is there we go do you know what this badge is called janky we don't talk about it much but you know what this particular logo is with it it's called a growler but it's slightly better is the one at the back it's my favourite the one the one in the back that one the lovely kind of sculpt its muscular one that's called the leaper the leaper so on the front of the old jag you is it was the statue on the bonnet like the rolls-royce but the belief in cap that's the leaper the Front's the growler front growler back leaper there you go then the ipace a british designed Austrian built to motor or wheel drive 298 mile SUV that's pure Evie and luckily it doesn't look like an SUV it looks better than that I just hope this car drives on the road as good as it has done today and also I hope that Tesla learn as quickly as they have in the past about how to put a car together really well this is exciting times for either right\n"