The driving portion consisted of two events: a street drive and an auto-x type event. For the street drive, people had the option of the I-PACE and the F-Type. I drove the I-PACE which was only about a 1-2 mile loop on the tight Santa Monica surface streets. At the start of my drive, my guide had me test out the normal mode with high regen braking which allows single pedal driving. After that initial test, I had the car in dynamic road the rest of the way which changes the throttle response and such. Even in dynamic mode, I felt the torque output on initial throttle application was soft, but I’m sure it’s calibrated for your average driver with a lead foot and the calibration is to prevent destroying the tires too quickly. I only had a short little hop on surface streets at slow speeds, I could tell the suspension was set up on the sporty side. I would personally like a slightly larger diameter steering wheel and quicker steering ratio; I had to shuffle steer on a tight 90-degree right hander. Nothing else really stood out about the steering which is to say the weighting was not too light (good) and there was not much in the way of feedback (bad but par for the course these days with electric power assist). For those who opted to take out the F-Type, they took a different route where the car could be opened up a bit. I did hear someone got themselves a complimentary speeding ticket from the friendly Santa Monica police.
The second driving event was this auto-x like event. Gates with lights on top were laid out in this square area. You had to drive through the gates that were lit green with the next gate being lit blue to give you a heads up on which direction to go. Realistically, there was no seeing where the blue gate was because the course was too tight. Fortunately, I had a good navigator riding shotgun; he called out the next gate and the relative tightness of turn I would have to take going through green gate to make the next gate. There was a short warmup of a few gates to get use to driving thru them based on the color sequence. This was fortunate for me as I had some brain function misfires and drove through the blue gates before the green. I guess I was thinking too far ahead. Anyway, I was able to set my brain straight just in time for the start of the run.
I guess I did alright clocking in with the fourth best time of the day (about 1pm at this point) out of a couple hundred. You can see the path I drove through the gates. I think the top squiggly line is the speed profile with the lower two being throttle and brake. The fact I was able to go quickly straight out of the box is really a testament to how easy the I-PACE is to drive quickly. At these speeds, I found the handling very neutral with just a hint of understeer at the limit. Being AWD, I could put the throttle down on corner exit and the car just hooked and went. There was also very little body roll from what I can recall. At these speeds, I did not encounter any on-throttle understeer or oversteer, just the little bit of understeer on corner entry if I came in a bit hot. I covered 369.96 meters in 39.90 seconds which equates to an average speed of about 20.74mph. For reference, while I was waiting, I saw times between 53 seconds and a 1:05. The square driving area only looks to be about 7 car lengths by 7 car lengths in size, so it was a tight space to be whipping around in!
After the drive, Jaguar was nice enough to provide free food and beer/coffee. You know I love me some free food!
An I-PACE eTROPHY was on display and it had appropriately sized brakes to be used for motorsports. This car would belong to Rahal Letterman Lanigan team with drivers Katherine Legge and Bryan Sellers. I remember when Legge started out in Champ car and her daily workout routine burned 3000 calories. Yes, pro drivers are serious athletes. So yeah, a lot of big names behind this series which runs as a support race for Formula E. The first race was in December in Saudi Arabia with Sellers finishing third and Legge setting the fastest lap.
If you happen to be in the market for an EV and want one that’s performance oriented, give the I-PACE a look. Based on my little spin around the block and lot, it’s an easy car to hop in and drive quickly immediately. Within the EV space, the I-PACE definitely falls on the sporty side. There’s a race series using this car with the production car batters and motors, so they should be reliable. I’d even venture a guess the EV Jag will be more reliable than it’s internal combustion powered stablemates.
2 comments
There are a couple of problems with these new cars and their array of LCD panels. First, they are really hard to see in bright sunlight. I’m pretty sure it was the Audi E-Tron, that has rearview cameras instead of mirrors, with LCD panels for view screens and the glare from inside the window made it nearly impossible to see the panel clearly. I can imagine, it’s even worse if you have a sunroof.
Secondly, I hope you can disable some of these panels at night, because from some of the reviews I have seen, they are a total distraction for night driving. Personally, I can’t stand to have anything remotely bright in my peripheral vision. Not to mention, that they produce glare off the winshield if not properly shielded.
I was always a big fan of the SAAB ‘night driving mode’.
Yup, I always turn down the brightness on my dash in my cars to avoid messing up my eyes at night. I gave that feedback to my coworkers while doing a user evaluation at my last company. There needs to be a night mode on any big displays.
I’m not quite sure what Byton is thinking with their full dash display. And steering wheel display. Looking at the steering wheel while driving seems like a bad idea.