First look at Jaguar's electric future as four-door grand tourer begins on-road testing
British brand leaps onto the reset button
If you’ve been following recent business announcements, you might be aware that Jaguar has taken an enormous gamble and decided to reset its entire product portfolio — meaning the British company’s dealers now have no new cars in their showrooms for at least a year.
But the firm’s rebirth is well under way, with more details about its rebrand and design direction expected over the coming month or so. Before then, the next product to come out of Jaguar’s Gaydon HQ has been snapped testing on roads in the UK, clothed in extensive development camouflage.
Little is known about the first car in the brand’s bold “Reimagine” strategy, other than that it is a pure-electric four-door grand tourer (GT) built on an all-new dedicated platform for electric vehicles. It is expected to be the first in an initial batch of three EVs that push Jaguar firmly upmarket, from a premium marque into the luxury sector.
Putting aside pricing and brand positioning, though, Jaguar’s new model will be competing against the other electric GTs such as the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron GT, as well as the forthcoming Polestar 5.
Despite the fact it’s a long way from making it to showrooms, the new Jaguar electric vehicle (EV) is in the first phase of global testing, with development taking place on public roads and dedicated facilities around the world.
The company says “tens of thousands” of miles of virtual and physical testing of the machine has already been completed.
Part of the development work involves running on British roads, with the keen-eyed likely to spot heavily disguised prototypes driving on the local routes near Jaguar’s main Gaydon facility in the West Midlands.
No place for the I-Pace
The new EV will be built in Solihull on the new dedicated underpinnings, called the Jaguar Electric Architecture (JEA).
Jaguar has already offered plug-in hybrid vehicles for sale, most notably its E-Pace and F-Pace SUVs, but it seemed like it was already ahead of the full EV market when, in 2018, it launched the I-Pace (below).
The firm had the jump on its German rivals by getting the I-Pace on sale ahead of anyone else, and it was critically well-received and achieved decent showroom figures in the UK, thanks to its impressive performance and decent amount of one-shot electric-driving range. However, it was soon outclassed in terms of range and charging, while its compromised packaging, which focused on design over practicality, made it a difficult choice for savvy buyers.
While learnings from the I-Pace have undoubtedly filtered into the Reimagine strategy, the pioneering SUV is not expected to continue as part of Jaguar’s new wave of pure-electric luxury vehicles. However, it is unlikely Jaguar will ignore the fact that buyers of all types demand an SUV to be part of a carmaker’s line-up these days.
More in Miami
Jaguar will reveal a concept car the “Design Vision” at Miami Art Week, which starts on December 2. That vehicle will give us further hints at what to expect from the next trio of production models from Jaguar.
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