“Established Jaguar design principles ensure the E-Pace is immediately recognisable as the sports vehicle of its class”.
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Very F-Type in the sense it has borrowed a few design cues, that is, including the head lights and the option of some big alloy wheels. Why not? It’s a sport utility vehicle.
“It would’ve been much easier to just scale down an F-Pace, and I think half of the world would’ve been expecting that”. Like Porsche, Alfa Romeo and Maserati, Jaguar is a sports-car brand that is finding success translating its performance DNA to a broader luxury demographic hungry for utility vehicles.
Inside the E-Pace, Jaguar provides seats for five passengers in a body composed of steel, aluminum, magnesium and composites.
The 2.0-litre four-cylinder Ingenium diesel powerplant is available in 110kW, 132kW and 177kW outputs, while the pair of 2.0-litre four-cylinder Ingenium petrol turbo units deliver 183kW or 221kW. It’s also capable of a 151mph top speed, which isn’t bad for an SUV.
At the opposite end end of scale, there will be a high-performance 240PS diesel with 500Nm of torque and a 0-62mph time of seven seconds.
Jaguar is not heavily pushing its baby SUV’s off-road ability and while the 4WD system should be handy on loose surfaces, it’s the so-called Active Driveline’s ability to push all drive to the rear for more sporty handling, or 100 per cent to the front wheels for fuel-efficiency on a cruise that makes plenty of sense. There is grab handle that’s for the passenger, which is similar to what you see in the F-Pace sports vehicle. Drivers can choose between four driving modes, which include Normal, Dynamic, ECO, and Rain, Ice, and Snow. Blind spot detection that auto steers to prevent a lane change if it detects a vehicle overtaking you haven’t detected.
Jaguar officials believe the E-Pace will at least equal the F-Pace in sales.
The E-Pace is on sale NOW, priced from £28,500.
For practicality, there’s a 24.2 cubic foot trunk with the rear seats up.
A large bin in the middle hub of the SUV is meant for placing any wine bottles. The advantage of this substantial length is that it’s possible to store objects that are 1.6m long, and still get two passengers in the auto. There’s even an option for paddle shift gears if you want to really take control of the drive.
All models come with a 10-inch touchscreen interface, reducing the number of switches needed on the dashboard, while the climate control functions are accessed via rotary dials. Any ideas for what Jaguar should do next?
Like I said before, every luxury maker is trying to grab a slice of the crossover profits pie, and you can’t blame them, what with American’s seemingly insatiable appetite for all things SUV. There’s configurable ambient interior LED lighting, a TFT head-up display, a gesture-controlled tailgate and unique badging as part of the package.
A choice of two Meridian sound systems will also be on offer.
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All this operates through a stereo camera that also adds traffic sign recognition, adaptive speed limiter and driver condition monitor.
