Jaguar I-Pace Takes On the German Autobahn
Electric I-Pace happily cruises down unrestricted Autobahn at 125 MPH.
The Autobahn has long been the playground for the finest cars Germany has to offer. For Jaguar, it’s deep in enemy territory. But while rivals Audi and Mercedes-Benz prepare their first all-electric releases, Jag has beaten them to the punch. And to celebrate, a Norwegian EV video blogger took the brand new I-Pace into Deutschland to show off what it can do.
“We are now at the German border in a Jaguar I-Pace. Yes, you see where this is going,” says Bjørn Nyland, the poster of this video. “Now, let’s see what this car is good for.” After coasting onto the Autobahn in the middle of the night, he puts the Jag into Dynamic mode and pins the pedal to the floor. “The throttle… just became very responsive,” he says while whooping with joy. In the passing lane of the Autobahn, he quickly tops out at 208 kilometers, or nearly 130 miles per hour.
After reaching speed, he turns the Jaguar’s polarizing artificial noise off. Once he does, the Tesla owner is amazed by how much quieter the I-Pace is compared to his car. “I don’t know if you can hear it,” he says, “but this car is so damn quiet!” Its stability at speed is impressive. But, he laments: “once you hit that top speed there’s not much torque because it’s limited [by] software.”
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But the I-Pace is more than just speed and handling. “Holy crap, the regen is so strong,” he says. He even thinks that the energy-restoring brakes are stronger than Tesla’s. The electric Jag’s 400 horsepower motors also feel more powerful than they are.
If we have one issue with this video, it’s that he spends so much time trying to overheat the I-Pace. Complaining of Tesla’s tendency to overheat if you switch from regen to power too much, he repeatedly buries the Jag’s throttle. Unsurprisingly, the new EV stays cool, after all, we track tested one. But, it does affect range. Over his 25-mile trip down the Autobahn, the I-Pace loses 75 miles worth of range. Good to know, but we have a feeling that most I-Pace owners won’t be flogging their new cars on speed limit-free highways.
Still, this is a great real-world test of the I-Pace conducted by someone steeped in EV culture. While it may be a bit heavy-handed, we love how well the new Jaguar acquits itself. While we love the sound of a classic straight-six or a fire-breathing supercharged V8, this is proof that electricity has a big future at Jaguar.
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