1) It’s pronounced ‘Type Zero One.’
It only says ‘Type 01’ in one place on the car’s exterior—a subtle, flush transfer on the edge of the hood near the windscreen. So, how to say it? According to Jaguar, it’s ‘Zero One,’ not Type One, and definitely not Type Oh-One. We think most people will actually call it ‘that new electric Jag.’ Or the ‘Bloody Hell, What’s That?’
2) The brand-new Jaguar was finished five years ago.
This traffic-stopping look was frozen sometime in 2021. Top Gear has seen top-secret photographs of the clay model being massaged in the design studio. The sculptors are wearing COVID face masks. That explains why the hood’s edges are two meters apart. The designers were social distancing.
3) The Type 01 was finished before the Type 00.
Think Jaguar was brave to retain the Type 00 concept’s ribbed front ‘grille,’ slatted rear lights, and reductive surfaces? The concept car didn’t invent them. The production car was finished first, then the pink coupe was reverse-engineered as an extreme preview of Jag 2.0.
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4) It’ll cost more than you expect.
Throughout the run-up to the Type 01, people have speculated the car would be priced somewhere between the Porsche Taycan (£90,000) and the Bentley Flying Spur (£190,000). Jaguar tells us the base price will be around £120,000 (around P9.98 million), but it expects the price ‘center of gravity’—basically what spending averages at after options—to be in the region of £150,000 (around P12.5 million).
5) The Type 01 got the best and worst scores ever in customer clinics.
Jaguar interviewed 2,500 people across six continents during Type 01 development to test the waters and see if it was on the right track with its rebrand. Every person canvassed was asked to grade it out of ten. The car got more nines and tens than any Jag previously measured by the same metric...but more ones and twos as well.
6) It’s the most powerful Jag ever.
No surprise here, as EVs democratise horsepower totals that were once the preserve of unobtanium-fuelled hypercars. The tri-motor Type 01 develops 1,035hp, whooshing it from 0-100kph in 3.2sec and 241kph flat out. We’re told it’s been calibrated for a smooth, effortless feel that builds pace, rather than bouncing your eyes off the back of your skull like squash balls.
7) You can choose from five driving modes.
And they are? Jaguar (the default, like Bentley’s, um, Bentley mode), Dynamic (sporty, neoww), Efficient (help, I’m low on battery!) and Ice & Snow (help, I’m crashing!), plus an individual mix-and-match setting called Curated mode.
8) There’s a big battery, but not the biggest range.
Jaguar has gone for a 118kWh battery. That’s huge. It could be bigger still, but engineers were forced to excavate spaces midway along the pack for rear passengers’ pesky feet. Claimed max range is 724km. That’s a sizeable endurance, up there with the best BMW offers in the i7 and Tesla’s Model S, but some way behind the 925km claimed by the Mercedes EQS, which is part car, part eel.
9) It boasts the best aero and stiffness for a Jag ever.
No Jaguar has ever been slipperier, with a 0.23 coefficient of drag quoted for the Type 01. It’s also the stiffest Jag to date, with a torsional rigidity of 57,000Nm per degree. To give you an idea of how strong that is, McLaren claims the race-car-spec carbon tub at the heart of the W1 hypercar is rated to 51,000Nm per degree. Jaguar back to Le Mans confirmed!
10) It’s a record-breaker, and a record-setter.
As well as being the most powerful, most slippery, and stiffest Jag ever, the Type 01 sets another benchmark. So far, more than 360 patents have been filed in its design and manufacture. No Jaguar has ever come up with that many innovations in one single model. Steady on clever clogs.
11) It’s been in the wind tunnel 7,000 times.
Eat your heart out, Adrian Newey. Both real-life aero modeling and computer simulation were employed to rack up those 7,000 aero tests, which helped Jaguar slightly modify the stark bodywork to ease drag. Motorized shutters up front added 43km of range on the EPA test cycle by only allowing airflow to the powertrain when needed. Jag-folk also explain they were so impressed with the work done on making the mirrors more aerodynamic, they didn’t have to bother with stupid side cameras. You listening, Audi?
12) It’s quite cramped in the rear.
Jaguar insiders we spoke to referred to the Type 01 as a ‘2+2 seater.’ Normally, only couples like an Aston Martin DB12 or a Porsche 911 are dubbed 2+2s. But despite having back doors and being over five meters long, the cartoonish Jag isn’t as spacious in the back as a Cadillac Celestiq, a Rolls-Royce Spectre, or even a BMW 5-Series. The high center console and low roofline create a hemmed-in feeling—this isn’t one for the chauffeur market.
13) It’s got no back window.
You saw that from the pictures. You also noted the huge rear fin and thought, “Well, it must have a rearview camera.” And it does. But the display isn’t where you’re expecting. Instead of being mounted high on the header rail like a conventional rearview mirror, the screen lives atop the dashboard on the ‘soundbar’ speaker.
14) The standard wheels measure 23 inches across...
...apart from rumors of a 21-inch option in countries where snow chains have to be fitted. Sounds like, with wheel sizes getting ever larger, there’s a gap in the market for enormous XXL snow chains. Anyone feel a business idea coming on?
15) They call the rear quarter ‘The Impossible Panel.’
And it’s an enormous piece. The press that stamps out what the engineering team originally considered beyond modern manufacturing is four storeys high and squeezes down with a force of 2,500,000kg. Bosh. 1,500 hours were spent tooling it up. Think about that when you see someone bashing into it with a supermarket trolley.
16) It shares nothing with any JLR product.
Well, so they say. Jaguar insists the JEA (Jaguar Electric Architecture) is in no way related to the platform under the new Range Rover GT, or the Range Rover Electric. Insiders insist the new seats, new speaker tech, and even the infotainment screens won’t be shared around the brand. While there will be other Jags on this architecture in the future, Land Rover won’t share their foundations. Fancy.
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
