“The Jaguar-ness that"s in the car is what we're most proud of”

Jaguar-ness is a term employed quite liberally to describe the Jaguar Type 01, particularly the dynamic attributes. Jon Darlington, architecture chief engineer, points to the 70’s XJC V12 as the reference point for dynamic attributes which the team have then baked into the 1000bhp all-electric Type 01. “There's a lot of EVs out there, but when people drive Type 01, they come back to me and say, the car's got character, the car's got soul, it's got something extra to it that you don't get in EVs,” says Darlington about early reactions to the new Jaguar.

On the eve of the Type 01’s maiden run up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the first public dynamic appearance for the controversial new Jag, we caught up with Darlington at JLR’s proving grounds in Gaydon, UK, to discuss the engineering challenges, solutions, reference points and what he is most proud of with the new Jaguar.

Fundamentally it has to be a Jaguar

“Jaguar is about ride comfort, refinement, delivering power in reserve. [A Jaguar] always feels like it has more power than you need.”

“We took all of that content and made sure that from an EV point of view, we delivered on all of those requirements. A lot of focus went into how we set up the suspension, tuned the powertrain to give us that power delivery at higher speeds which is not a normal way of tuning an EV. Instead of that instant torque delivery, we build the power with speed so the car feels faster the faster you drive it. That's really important for a Jaguar to have that soul and that character.”

The luxury gap

“From a packaging point of view the proportions are really important and part of that is having a long bonnet. There's also a part of that which would be called the luxury gap.

That's the front wheel centre to the front occupant's foot that gives the car presence and stature and pushes the proportions. You look at all of the great Jaguars from history, they've got that large luxury gap. It is a big challenge on an EV to do that, because it's not traditionally how you lay out an electric car, because it's difficult to use that space for electrical energy.

“We've had to come up with some really creative solutions to enable those proportions and enable us to have an EV that works and delivers the driving character that we wanted for the car. It’s hugely important for the presence of the car and makes it stand out like a Jaguar.”

We haven't laid out Type 01 like a traditional EV

“We had to come up with unique ways to lay the structure out. We run high voltage systems behind the front wheel and ahead of the front occupant. The reason why that's difficult is because you've got to protect those in a crash environment. The car's super low, 1.4metres tall. To get an EV that low and give the space back to the occupant is a big challenge. We've had to think about how we've laid the battery pack out. We've split the battery pack to give space back to allow us to sit the row two occupants quite low in the car. And then we use the front of the car to put some HV systems in, such as the battery management system, which we would have traditionally put underneath the row two seat, which also allows us to keep the car low. The biggest challenge is getting all of those HV systems in the car with those proportions and still delivering the driving character. “

From the classic cars you're not taking objective data

“The XJC, it's a 70s V12 two-door coupe or based off of a sedan and it's roughly a 50-60 year gap in engineering between those cars. If we take the XJC, it's got great primary comfort. It's hugely refined, got lots of roll control, lots of capability and it's quite engaging, but it's still comfortable. It was those features that you take in and reimagine for the technology we've got available now, but it's that inherent subjective feel.”

“You're never taking objective data. You're taking subjective feeling and then translating that into a modern application such as Type 01 - but it's got that underlying essence of being a Jaguar, which is important. You drive the two cars back to back and you definitely feel the character between the two. They're from the same brand and that's important for us, but they are 50 - 60 years apart in their engineering. But it's important that it's got a coherent feeling of being a Jaguar.“

Jaguar does have a strong history in motorsport

“But it also has a strong history in sedans and GTs. It actually started with those luxury products in the 30s. The motorsport link was about exercising the XK engine and showing the XK engine's capability. What we've got with this car [Type 01] is picking up that GT nature. If you think about GT, it's a combination of luxury and performance and that's what Jaguar was fundamentally about – beautiful, fast cars. “

“There has been some motorsport connections, but the mainstream, the bloodline of Jaguar has been the performance and luxury combination, which is what we've taken and put into the Type 01.”

No one's really doing what we're doing with the EV

“Our bullseye car was the XJC, that was our reference car. It was about that subjective link. But we did look at Taycan, i7, we drove a number of Audi and Bentley products. You want to understand what's there but none of them did what we needed to do to be a Jaguar. But it's important that you understand what you're competing against.

If we use this phrase, copy nothing. And I can absolutely say that we didn't benchmark and copy other people. We went in our own direction, which having been in the automotive industry for 30 years, that is unique. I've never developed a car that way.”

None of the competitors do what we wanted to do for Jaguar

“A lot of them focus on leaning into the instant torque that's delivered from an EV. You get cars that are really fast, but quite harsh and unrefined in their delivery. You get other cars which lean into the refinement aspect because EVs give you a refinement element, but they then don't have a character and a soul. They become sort of inert. They're luxury products, but they don't give you that soulful feeling. There are some great cars out there and there's some great engineering feats, but they don't deliver that Jaguarness that we wanted. And that's what we dialed in. Making sure that character comes into the EV and just purely thinking about how we deliver that and not focusing on measuring other people's metrics and matching them, that was the big difference.”

Future-proofing an architecture is definitely something you think about at the start

“You look at the trends in the industry, technology, and you have an idea of the things that you want to be able to walk towards without having to completely restart on your architecture.

Right at the start you understand the kind of form factors that are likely to develop into future solid-state batteries and that's what you build your car around. You can then interchange those form factors without having to basically carve up the car. But the technology is moving so quickly that you can protect yourself to a certain extent by being strategic with your decisions. But then you've got to keep on top of that and keep track of it. “