New Jaguar Type 01 review: early verdict on controversial electric GT

Verdict

Jaguar told us it was still fine-tuning the Type 01’s software when we drove the car back in April. But with a few small tweaks we’ve every confidence it will be a revered all-rounder. Its high-speed performance, ride comfort and refinement impressed, but an inability to truly utilise the car’s myriad drive modes and menus meant we’re reserving outright judgement on the car’s dynamic prowess until we drive the finished article in early 2027.

The covers have finally been pulled off the Jaguar Type 01 – a polarising, all-electric GT car, that represents the first look at the firm’s bold new future. But before the glitzy launch event in New York, we were treated to an early drive in a pre-production prototype at the company’s UK base in Gaydon.

The Type 01 has been born from a clean sheet of paper, first laid out at the start of the Covid pandemic. Consider that, and the six-year development programme seems better justified; relaunching any brand – let alone one with as much history and heritage as Jaguar – is no mean feat. Customer deliveries of the new GT are expected to start next summer.

The opportunity to try the new Jaguar GT on tarmac back in April – even in the sanitised environment around Jaguar’s test facility – was a key milestone in the car’s development. It showed that the team behind the project were finally confident enough with their progress to let us have a proper go.

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Jon Darlington, JEA (Jaguar Electric Architecture) chief engineer, told us at the time that the camouflaged late-stage prototype we were driving was “100 per cent accurate for hardware, and around 70 per cent complete for software”, but that they still had “tuning to do”.

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JLR’s product character and performance manager, Navid Shamshiri, was our co-pilot for the day. He reiterated that the GT we were driving was fixed in its default comfort-oriented drive mode, with no opportunity to flick through to the proposed eco or dynamic settings. It was on all-season tyres, though the standard-fit 23-inch wheels were present and correct.

Setting off, we immediately appreciated the advantages of the Jag GT’s rear-wheel steering system. While the six degrees of angle on the back axle was nothing of note, Darlington told us that the front wheels were capable of turning up to 43 degrees – more than any Jaguar to date. Together, they made the 5.2m-long electric car feel like a supermini.

Moving around at low speeds, the GT did a great job of isolating us from the outside world. Sure, JLR’s test-track environment didn’t offer the hustle and bustle of a major town or city, but nor was it silent and free of disturbance. The driving position, with the tall centre console and low-slung seats, made us feel cocooned – only emphasised by the lack of a back window and, for that matter, any kind of conventional rear-view mirror.

As revealed in New York, production cars get a hi-tech, low-set, camera-controlled display on top of the dashboard, but when we drove the GT it was covered up, so we were forced to rely on the door mirrors to know what was going on behind us. Shamshiri assured us that the digital set-up they’ve developed is much more intuitive than previous efforts, and requires fewer focal adjustments in real-world use.

As our speed increased, that cosseting, cocooned feeling continued. The steering had a decent weight to it, and the throttle map was sufficiently damped so as to not make the car feel jerky or unsettled when we put our foot down. Yet there was clearly plenty of power, with a strong surge of torque well past the national speed limit.

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Jaguar’s team of esteemed engineers wanted the car to feel commanding and powerful even at the top end. So where other EVs tail off at 100mph or more, the GT continued to pull. Shamshiri encouraged us to try accelerating from a steady three-figure cruise – and the way this 2.7-tonne electric four-door picked up instantly proved its ability to eat up autobahns for breakfast. Refinement, with the exception of a little whistle around the door mirrors, seemed imperious, and easily as good as an equivalent Bentley or Porsche.

Another pleasing attribute was range. While a lot of the screens were darkened during our drive, as we got in we noted the trip readout showing 349 miles at 82 per cent state of charge. This dropped to 323 miles and 77 per cent after our stint which, given the high speeds and unsympathetic driving style, didn’t seem too bad at all. We’ll need a longer drive over more familiar roads for a true efficiency assessment – something we expect early in the New Year.

Our only real gripe was how the car drove around Jaguar’s complex and rutted handling track. While the ride, control weights and performance potential all impressed, the GT did occasionally feel slightly upset by larger, more sudden changes in elevation – like small, mid-corner crests or challenging cambers. Shamshiri assured us that, were we able to fiddle with the drive modes and adjust the damping via the dynamic or individual settings, we’d be able to tweak the GT’s floaty default demeanour. Alas, that’s one for our next outing.

On this evidence, Jaguar’s new four-door EV is shaping up to be an impressive grand tourer. If the engineers can nail down that final 30 per cent and give the car the dynamics to match its high-speed refinement, then the company’s ambitions to better Bentley in the luxury GT market seem entirely justified.

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