By Xolile Hopa

Jaguar has taken the wraps off the Type 01, a four-door electric grand tourer that the company says is the most powerful and technically advanced car it has ever built.The Type 01 is the first production Jaguar to emerge from the brand’s new design philosophy which it calls “exuberant modernist.” 

Strategy behind the car

Rawdon Glover, Jaguar’s Managing Director said the Type 01 is meant to bring the brand back to relevance. “Jaguars should be objects of desire and culturally relevant,” he said. “That’s their natural habitat and where Jaguar is returning.”For a marque that is reinventing itself around electric power, the Type 01 is the product that has to make the argument.

Designed for drama, tuned for the wind

The styling is deliberately theatrical: a low roofline, long bonnet, short front overhang and 23-inch wheels. Jaguar says designers started with a blank sheet of paper, then worked with engineers in the wind tunnel to reach a drag coefficient of 0.23, the best of any Jaguar. Active vanes and a three-stage deployable spoiler contribute to that figure.

Underneath sits a new body architecture called JEA that Jaguar says was necessary because nothing existing could deliver the car’s shape and performance. The company says the car was designed, engineered and built in the UK and that it carries more than 360 patent applications.

Inside, a central spine splits the cabin into four individual spaces, flanked by brass-effect anodised aluminium finishers. A 24-inch single-glass OLED screen sits ahead of the driver with a smaller seven-inch smartphone-style touchscreen between the front seats for key controls. The audio system pairs Sensory Audio seats with a full-width Panoramic Soundbar which Jaguar describes as an automotive first.

According to the company, its three electric motors produce up to 757kW and 1,365Nm of torque, enough for 0-100km/h in 3.2 seconds. It says the car then rolls from 100 to 180km/h in 4.0 seconds.