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Electrek Review Jaguar I-PACE: a stunning electric vehicle with some issues https://electrek.co/2019/01/20/jaguar-i-pace-review/ We got a Jaguar I-Pace for a few days last week and we were able to take the electric vehicle on a decent road trip in California. Last year we took it on a drive through Portugal but that was a heavily regulated and scripted ride by Jaguar. How does the I-Pace work in a real world, unscripted use case? Here I give my thoughts on the I-Pace, which I think is a stunning electric vehicle and a first great EV for Jaguar, but it has some issues. Jaguar I-Pace DesignLet’s start with the design and form factor of the I-Pace, which is interesting for different reasons. First of all, it’s a beautiful vehicle. Absolutely stunning. The design was growing on me over the few days I was driving the car and I never had so many strangers complimenting me for a car before. When on our road trip, we even had someone flagging us down in traffic to tell us how beautiful it was. Jaguar didn’t fall for the same traps that many established automakers have fallen into when making their first electric vehicles. They didn’t make feel the need to include some “electric design accents” and instead focused on making a great looking car that just happens to be electric. Why the Jaguar I-Pace is not really an SUVAs for the form factor, Jaguar is calling it an SUV, but I can’t really get on board with that. The only way this car looks and drove like an SUV is when you put the suspension on the “off-road” setting and that’s not something you should do most of the time: When the suspension is on “normal”, the car looks a lot more like a sedan or a wagon but not exactly. It makes for quite a unique crossover CUV in my opinion. The design is not the only thing that differentiates the I-Pace from an SUV. When you are driving, it certainly feels more like a sedan than an SUV since you don’t really have that height advantage over other cars on the road. But that’s not a bad thing at all. Also, the cargo space, which is 25.3 cubic feet in the trunk and 51 cubic feet with the rear seat down, is only what you would expect in a compact SUV or even sedans. There are sedans, like the Tesla Model S, with more cargo space than that. In short, it doesn’t have most of the things you would expect from an SUV today, but to be fair, it does have the “sports” aspect of an SUV…in spades. Jaguar I-Pace Driving ExperienceThat’s where the I-Pace shines the brightest. It’s a fun car to drive. So. much. fun. With their first EV, Jaguar managed to take advantage of the instant torque of the electric powertrain and it delivers on an exciting pedal response. The handling is strong and helped by the lower center of gravity thanks to the battery pack – the vehicle hugs the road. I also liked the steering responsiveness. On the highway, the driving is comfortable and … boring, as it should be in a luxury vehicle. As for the driver assist features, I wasn’t impressed. I had to correct the steering system regularly and sometimes it would stop working without warning other than the wheel render going gray. The active cruise control was mostly working fine, but the car gave me a few weird front collision alerts in stop and go traffic while active cruise control was enabled, which is not what you want out of that. Jaguar has some work to do here. Jaguar I-Pace User InterfaceThat was the biggest downside of my entire experience with the I-Pace. The user interface is unintuitive and it had several bugs. Jaguar’s navigation system wasn’t great so we wanted to use Apple Carplay, but it wouldn’t work. Apple Carplay would stop working after 30 seconds or so and the iPhone wasn’t the problem because we tried two different ones and the problem persisted. Some apps simply wouldn’t launch when we clicked on them and the center touchscreen would be very sluggish at times. Jaguar I-Pace User InterfaceThat was the biggest downside of my entire experience with the I-Pace. The user interface is unintuitive and it had several bugs. Jaguar’s navigation system wasn’t great so we wanted to use Apple Carplay, but it wouldn’t work. Apple Carplay would stop working after 30 seconds or so and the iPhone wasn’t the problem because we tried two different ones and the problem persisted. Some apps simply wouldn’t launch when we clicked on them and the center touchscreen would be very sluggish at times. Photos from the recent motorshow. Seems like this is going to be on sale in Singapore.