1st March Confirmed for Reveal of the Jaguar I-Pace Production Car
Posted on Tuesday, 27th of February 2018
The race is on. Jaguar are aiming to have their first electric car on the market before the Audi E-Tron and they are aiming to have it on show at Geneva’s Motor Show. It is their hope that the I-Pace will join the bigger F-Pace and its smaller cousin, the E-Pace, in showrooms as soon as July.
Jaguar has been carrying out test drives for some time in Sweden, and whilst test vehicles are still very much disguised, the company must surely be happy with the progress as images are now appearing in public places. These recent tests have been testing the efficiency of the battery with low temperatures, and in Sweden, these have been as cold as -40 degrees. Traditionally these have been known to lower the possible range of EV’s.
A closer look at the I-Pace
It is expected that the production I-pace will retain most of the design features that were first shown; using a 100kW charger it should be able to reach an 80% battery capacity in just 45 minutes. Measured on the New European Driving Cycle the car is showing a maximum range of 310 miles on a battery that is fully charged. Jaguar have been quoted as saying that the car has a 0-60mph time of just 4.0 seconds.
As with other Jaguars, the architecture of the I-Pace is Aluminium-intensive, it has been used to make the housing for the battery pack and much of the body structure, and the motors have been designed in-house to help achieve the appropriate levels of compactness, power density and efficiency required.
Jaguar have opted for a 90kWh lithium-ion battery pack with 32 pouch cells, as they believe these offer an excellent potential for future development in terms of energy density. Operating at low heat these will run at a higher performance for longer than the alternative cylindrical cells.
It is expected that for a vehicle with similar specifications the new I-Pace will be around 10-15% higher in price that the F-Pace, so prices would be around £60,000; Jaguar have already received 350 deposits for the car since the concept was first revealed in November 2016. The hype is that the I-Pace may well just be the most revolutionary car produced by Jaguar in their 81 years of manufacturing. It is expected that it may well put them right up there with Tesla’s Model X. In fact. it is hoped that the I-Pace will be the first electric SUV in showrooms from a premium car maker.
It is expected that those cars already pre-ordered will be ready to roll out to customers by summer 2018. Will you be taking a second look?