Shortly after our test car was picked up again, journalists crowned the i-Pace the "Car of the Year". A coveted title, but has the electric Jaguar earned it too? An everyday test.
To be honest, we personally don't seem to be fully prepared for the wave of electric cars that are starting to roll. Because at home we simply plug the cable of such a test car into the socket due to a lack of a wallbox or even a quick charging station. Until recently, this was still quite good with the first generations of an E-Golf, Nissan Leaf or BMW i3. Depending on the version, batteries between 25 and 40 kWh in size were only sufficient for an official range of around 200 kilometers, which in fact usually did not correspond to more than 140 real kilometers, but you could easily charge the battery overnight at the socket if you could hadn't driven it completely empty.
And now this: Our Jaguar i-Pace digitally displays a battery level of exactly 50 percent. But we want to reload, as a driver of an e-car, you finally learn to use every opportunity to "refuel". So put it in the socket and we'll rub our eyes - 21 hours should be there, until the half-full battery is fully charged.
Of course this is partly due to our antiquated-simple approach, just that outlet, and on the other hand to the batteries of the new electric cars. A whopping 90 kWh is the capacity of the i-pace. And with that, we can also answer today's most important question of e-mobility, that of the range. Jaguar promises 480 kilometers, which of course can only be achieved under optimum conditions and almost ascetic driving. But 350 or even 380 "real" kilometers are always possible. That is something, the range of the first own car of this author was not much larger, which was less due to the tank size than the horrendous practice consumption of Youngtimers from today's perspective.
Back to the i-pace, which has been on the market since last summer and is set by Jaguar with a base price of 78.850 Euro. Needless to say that the final price with many nice additional features, such as air suspension, loosely screwed up by five-figure amounts. So he is expensive, the Briton.
And how does the visually strong on the slightly longer SUV Normalo F-Pace reminiscent of i-pace? Clear answer: really great! And that means not only quiet and powerful, as it is obligatory for an e-car, thanks to the laws of nature, but also very comfortable. The Jaguar engineers have placed the 4,68 meter long vehicle on a three-meter wheelbase floor unit, which is almost the size of a Mercedes S-Class. Accordingly, it is relaxed in the i-pace, which is powered by two independently operating electric motors on the front and rear axles, which conveniently equal to a four-wheel drive comes about.
Above all, the driving pleasure is not too short. Thanks to the engine distribution, the weight distribution on the axles is ideal for 50: 50. The stiff aluminum body does the rest to make the car manageable and precisely steerable. Surprisingly, such an electric car weighs around 600 tonnes, mainly because of the 2,2 kilogram battery in the vehicle floor. The weight of the batteries brings the center of gravity far down, which further enhances the driving pleasure. It does not bother you that despite 400 PS and almost 700 Newtonmeters torque, although in less than five seconds Tempo 100 achieved, but is already braked at 200 km / h. The fun with the i-pace lies in its start, its light-footedness and great handling, which even makes a pass for the Alps a pleasure. E-car driving is allowed to feel like that.
The cockpit also impresses with its clean workmanship and appropriate digitality, as underlined by the instruments or the large touch screen in the middle of the dash. Main point of criticism is and remains, as with many models of the Jaguar / Land Rover family, a certain idiosyncrasy in terms of operation, which was not exactly intuitive and not exactly responsive.
But there is not really much to be said against this Jaguar, especially since it also offers a large, expandable trunk and enough space at the front and rear. It just costs a lot of money, with the most necessary additional equipment on board it will hardly be less than 85.000 euros and those who are not careful will quickly spend over 90.000 euros. But ultimately it will hardly be cheaper at Mercedes (EQC) or Audi (e-tron).
