PACED OUT

In the last year or so, my distant mistrust of electric vehicles has given way to ever-increasing curiosity. The first eye-openers were the Hyundai Kona and the Tata Nexon EV, and last month the Audi e-tron was a cementer of approval, though some others that I drove seemed to miss one point or another. However, a couple of days with the Jaguar I-Pace convinced me that it’s probably the best one yet. To me, the I-Pace feels like the most cohesive EV in India yet. Or maybe I liked it because of that flaming red it came wearing. Or maybe it’s just that I love cats. Actually, it’s those things and more.

The I-Pace looks downright brilliant; it’s got a long silhouette, a low front, and a high rear, so its poise is always like it’s a feline bum-wiggle away from pouncing on unsuspecting traffic. It’s got an air scoop on the bonnet that people just can’t help peeking into, and an almost-vertical stubby tail that a Manx would be proud of. The air flowing through said air scoop goes over the car’s fixed panoramic roof and through a neat spoiler at the top of the rear windshield, and that stubby tail is no doubt dictated by a wind tunnel. And the door handles sit flush with the body and pop out only while getting in and out. The result? A 0.29 Cd figure.

That’s among the many learnings the I-Pace carries from Jaguar’s I-Type Formula E racer, some others being thermal management, battery efficiency, and software optimisation. But the racers obviously have ever had this kind of luxury in their cockpits. The I-Pace’s interior is comfortable and connected in every conceivable manner, and is lined with leather this, gloss that, and premium everything. All the finishes that you wouldn’t let a cat near. And I can promise you, if a cat ever got into the I-Pace, it’d have a hard time hanging on, claws or not.

An electric motor on each axle helps the 19-inch wheels hook up and send the I-Pace charging down the road; there’s no gradual build- up of momentum, just immediate and thrilling acceleration all the way to the end. Yes, the end. With a 90kWh battery that enables 394 bhp and an insane 71 kgm of torque, it’s plenty quick and fast. It does 0-100 kph in 4.8 seconds, which I confirmed on several occasions, doing runs past parked PUC vans, no less. And it was mighty addictive, till my head got tired of slamming into the headrest.

If the ‘throttle’ is kept buried into the carpet, the I-Pace will take you to its top speed of 200 kph in more or less the same relentless manner it gets to 100 kph. As I’m sure you can imagine, that’s a pretty handy attribute indeed. It was difficult not to drive the I-Pace in hair-on-fire mode; it simply begs to go flat out all the time, and that marks it as a proper Jaguar in my book. Or any book, for that matter. Of course, such a driving attitude won’t make its ‘driver style rating’ readout think much of you, and will drain its 470-km WLTP-cycle range at a rate of knots. Real-world range, though, is comfortable; a full charge will get you through 350-400 km with reasonable driving.

The I-Pace handles like a well-fed cat. It may seem like it’s trying too hard, but it’s a cat so it can pretty much do anything it wants. After all, it carries the weight of a giant battery, so it’s best not to expect the reactions of an F-Type. That said, with all-wheel drive and torque vectoring, the I-Pace is well capable of getting up to all kinds of business. In dynamic mode, it hugs the ground and scrambles around like a huge red cat chasing an invisible laser-pointer dot. Above 105 kph, the suspension lowers itself by 10 mm to make the I-Pace slip through the air even better.

The optional electronic air suspension is a must-have, even if selecting a higher suspension height adds a post-lunch feeling to proceedings. It improves ride quality by a big margin, and handling-wise adds nothing that the long and low I-Pace can’t handle. It’s got all the electronics it needs to keep the snarling Jaguar badge pointed the right way at all times. Even on a completely wet road, nothing upset its composure, whether it was acceleration runs or scrambling around corners. It also has an off-road mode, but I didn’t feel like taking that particular gamble with a battery in the floor of an expensive car.

Speaking of the battery, the I-Pace’s hood holds a home charging cable which juices up this Jaguar from a normal wall socket in 48 hours. But obviously you’ll have better things to do than to wait for a car to be charged, so a standard- equipment 7.4 kW AC wall-mounted charger offers a full-charge time of around 14 hours. With a 25 kW or a 50 kW DC charger, times for 0-80 per cent charging drop down to 3.5 hours and 1.5 hours. Perhaps it’s just me, but I always get a faint smell of hot electrical wiring in electric cars, especially after repeated acceleration runs. All EVs I’ve driven so far have had this, though I don’t mean to alarm anyone, of course; perhaps it’s just something we’ll have to get used to in EVs. The smell of leaking petrol is somehow more welcome, though.

The I-Pace’s price — ` 1.12 crore for this top-of-the-line HSE variant — puts it firmly in rarified territory. However, this first wave of EVs is kind of a no-holds-barred first appearance. They have to come out with all their luxurious guns blazing (silently); perhaps that’s where the more accessible EVs of the future will find their paths and characters from. At least for now, I am convinced that manufacturers can make electric vehicles fun — after driving the Jaguar I-Pace, it almost seems impossible not to.

Read More of our articles related to books and authors : Gobookmart