The Art of Luxury Issue 33 2018 | Page 6

Ian Callum, Director of Design for Jaguar, explained that in each axle delivering all –wheel drive and again, contributing the reason for this design choice in the past was due to the to the I-PACEs low centre of gravity. All of this efficiency means a limitations of the typical engine and transmission gear that was range of up to 298 miles as measured by the WLTP test cycle. required. When designing a standard car, you start with the huge mechanical parts that are necessary - the placement of these isn’t too flexible. For example, there is no getting around the huge 4 litre V8 in your typical Range Rover of the past. Add in the transmission gear and drive shaft, and before you know it the proportions of the rest of the car are almost dictated by the mechanics underneath. However, this wasn’t the case with the I-Pace which has been completely designed from the ground up with the only large mechanical pieces being the two high efficiency electric motors. Packaging them concentrically with the single-speed transmissions makes them as compact as possible. Their position 6 The Art of Luxury Issue 33 2018 For those longer journeys, a quick 40-minute stop at one of the UK’s many public rapid chargers would top you up to 80% charge. If instead you wished to charge the I-PACE overnight at home, the same battery life would take 10 hours, so perfect for an overnight charge. Upon driving the car, it quickly became clear quite how powerful the motors were. It boasts 0-60mph in 4.5 seconds, with 696Nm of torque. Now there are not many cars which could put such a smile on your face when you put the pedal down, double up as a great family car, and on top of all of that, cope with off-road conditions with extreme temperatures as low as -40°C. The I-Pace really left ourselves wanting for nothing.