Item: Jaguar E-Pace 2017-2024
Rating: 3.5

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When it launched, the Jaguar E-Pace diversified the brand away from its regular crop of buyers by appealing to a younger and trendier audience.

And this bold move proved successful, with the compact SUV having scored almost 100,000 sales across Europe to date.

The F-Type sports car had the biggest influence on the E-Pace’s design, with its ovoid headlights, wraparound tail-lights, pronounced haunches, and wheels pushed as close to the car’s extremities as was reasonably possible.

It’s a handsome thing that still has presence today.

Less appealing was its technical make-up: it had an all-steel body and sat on an old Ford platform, which meant it tipped the scales at 1768kg, making it similar in weight to the considerably larger F-Pace.

As such, when we first drove the E-Pace, we found it didn’t deliver the poise and finesse that we had come to expect from a Jaguar.

It was inoffensive and by no means bad to drive, with its well-tuned steering shining through, but a brittle low-speed ride meant that it didn’t excel at balancing athleticism with comfort.

Several diesel and petrol engines were offered in various tunes.

Mild-hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains were added later when the E-Pace received a number of upgrades, the most notable being a switch to JLR’s PTA platform, which underpinned the second-generation Land Rover Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque of 2019.

Both front- and four-wheel drive were available, while a smooth, ZF-supplied nine-speed automatic gearbox was standard on all cars.

The 1.5-litre petrol fours and lesser 2.0-litre diesel fours were a bit sluggish, so we would suggest the 178bhp D180 as a used buy: it struck the best compromise between oomph and economy (expect around 50mpg).

If you don’t do enough miles to justify a diesel, the 2.0-litre petrol four could be had with 197bhp, 247bhp or, later on, 296bhp. If you want to tow, the 237bhp D240 should be ideal.

The 296bhp P300e plug-in hybrid, introduced in 2019, promised up to 34 miles of electric-only range and was a welcome addition for its punchy combination of petrol engine and electric motor.

A used PHEV E-Pace will always be dearer than its pure-ICE counterpart, though, and you will need to have reliable access to a charger at home or work.

Crucially, the E-Pace espoused the traditional luxury brand values of its F-Pace big brother inside, with plush leather seats, chrome trim and a neatly organised dashboard.

A selection of cheaper plastics conspired to lessen the upmarket feel, but it still had rivals like the Volkswagen Tiguan licked for material quality.

Opt for the later facelifted car if you want even more opulence and slicker technology (primarily a new touchscreen that’s larger and nicer to use).

The E-Pace is also capacious for its size, being able to comfortably accommodate both children and adults in the rear, with the latter able to find a relaxing seating position thanks to generous rear head and leg room.

Impressive interior quality and clever packaging are Jaguar hallmarks, of course, but they are likely to come at a much higher price in future as the brand remodels itself as a maker of ultra-luxury electric cars.

A used E-Pace for £9000 seems like a bargain when you consider that direction of travel – and, now that it’s on the chopping block, should bring an air of exclusivity to your everyday commute.

Verdict

Model tested:

Rating: 7

Used Jaguar E-Pace 2017-2024 review

Stylish E-Pace misses the mark for keen drivers but a desirable SUV nevertheless

Good

Handsome, if not exactly elegant

Refined at speed, with a calming ambience

Rock-solid residual values

Bad

Lacklustre, slow-shifting powertrain

Little of Jaguar’s traditional handling polish

Expensive compared with more accomplished rivals

DESIGN & STYLING

Pros

F-Type influence on design means the E-Pace trumps rivals on style

Broad mix of diesel and petrol engines

Cons

Dated steel platform makes it heavier than F-Pace sibling

Proportions make it look unusually tall

Jaguar’s design team should be prasied for going further than simply scaling down the look of the Jaguar F-Pace for its baby SUV. This was, after all, a depressingly familiar tactic in this class.

The E-Pace instead took most of its inspiration from the Jaguar F-Type sports coupé, and before you dismiss that as a marketing contrivance, just look at the details.

While the overall effect was perhaps a touch cutesy, the E-Pace posessed a stance rare among its peers. Acres of honeycomb plastic at the front underlined the sporty message, although there was something about the car’s proportions that made it seem curiously tall in the metal.

Less encouraging was the fact that the E-Pace sourced its platform from the Land Rover Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque, albeit with a unique wheelbase owing to an altered mounting for a stiffer front suspension subframe that was said to improve steering feel.

Despite the use of magnesium in the dashboard crossmember and aluminium for the bonnet, tailgate and front wings, the E-Pace was heavier than the F-Pace.

The latter’s monocoque was far lighter thanks to the use of more expensive aluminium. The resulting 1768kg kerb weight made the E-Pace almost 40kg heavier than the equivalent Volvo XC40 and more than 180kg heavier than the BMW X1.

This was also the first transverse-engined Jaguar since the X-Type, which did little to aid the E-Pace's weight distribution.

The fight against bulk was led by JLR’s 2.0-litre Ingenium diesel engine, offered in three states of tune.

There were two petrol options, including a flagship 296bhp four-cylinder which was borrowed from the F-Type and could fire the E-Pace to 60mph in 5.9sec.

INTERIOR

Pros

Solid amount of rear head and leg room

Still a pleasant car to ride around in and well laid out

Cons

Overall refinement compromised by heavy use of cheap plastics

Sloping roofline limits boot space

The clean architecture of the E-Pace’s interior was so conservative it could be judged to be a little sterile, and relied on the quality and colour of its materials to bring it to life.

The E-Pace was a mixed bag in this respect, however. The cabin was a pleasant enough place in which to while away miles, but closer inspection was unikely to endear it to owners.

Plastic – matt finished, and of fairly high quality – featured heavily, but no more than in many of the car’s premium rivals and you perceived it more acutely because there was not much in the way of switchgear to break up its expanse.

A smattering of chrome finish helped matters, although, somewhat curiously, with the air-vent surrounds more lustrous and cooler to the touch than the large piece found on the transmission tunnel.

Jaguar’s Touch Pro infotainment, which was standard across the range, used a 10in touchscreen neatly integrated into the dashboard.

Latency was usefully improved over slightly older Jaguar models, even if some of the icons along the bottom of the screen were inconveniently small.

The screen’s matt finish made it difficult to read in sunlight. Conspicuous by its absence was any potential for smartphone mirroring, either with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.

The driving environment – strongly demarcated by the central passenger grab handle first seen in the Jaguar F-Type – was hard to fault ergonomically, but the steering wheel buttons felf cheap.

The underlying sentiment was that the cabin had been assembled to meet a less-generous budget than you would expect of a £40,000 car, and that was a problem when Audi , Volvo and BMW set such high standards at the time.

The E-Pace did provide well for families on long journeys, however. You could have up to four 12V charging points and five USB connections that catered for front and rear passengers.

Jaguar's small SUV offered more than adequate rear head and leg room – in fact, the E-Pace surpassed the Volvo XC40 in this regard, although the Volkswagen Tiguan offered more rear-seat leg room than either.

Boot space wasn’t so generous, though, but the sloping roofline was to blame for that.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

Pros

Hushed at motorway speeds

Smooth gearbox

Cons

Lower powered diesel lacks refinement and outright punch

Nine-speed 'box hangs on to gears for too long

The firm’s decision to use a nine-speed transmission made for even more mysterious acquaintance.

The ZF-built unit clung to each ratio a little too long under acceleration before executing a fairly leisurely – albeit suitably smooth – shift.

Were the car’s Ingenium diesel engine a smoother one at high revs, or had it a greater operating range, it wouldn’t have been such a problem, but the motor possessed neither of those attributes and felt a little bit laboured for much of the time.

The upshot for the D180 was that progress never felt as energetic as you might have hoped for from a Jaguar, and that was confirmed by a 0-60mph time that dipped under 10sec by only the slimmest of margins.

By comparison, the similarly equipped and only marginally more potent Volvo XC40 D4 laid down an 8.5sec run in damp conditions, and was quicker by an equivalent proportion in dispatching the 30-70mph rolling sprint that’s important for overtaking.

Quite simply, we expected better from a car whose marketing taglines sought to place it among the more vigorous and exciting models in its class.

However, one benefit of having so very many ratios was that the D180 E-Pace registered barely more than 1800rpm at 70mph.

And so, even though the Ingenium diesel was squeezed into a particularly compact space and lacked overall refinement in other applications, the E-Pace could progress along a motorway in a surprisingly serene fashion.

RIDE & HANDLING

Pros

Settled and composed ride at higher speeds

Crisp steering is the highlight of the driving experience

Cons

Claims of rear-drive character didn't stack up in the main

Low speed ride wasn't great

The E-Pace conducted itself in a capable, inoffensive and broadly class-competitive way, but this wasn't without an air of disappointment, especially for examples from the more humble end of the line-up.

Jaguar claimed the E-Pace had the rear-driven character of more expensive range-mates, but this didn't stack up when we tested in back in 2017.

Running on winter tyres, the E-Pace’s on-limit cornering poise was inevitably compromised, and its body was keener to roll around corners.

Unlike the larger F-Pace, the E-Pace was unable to shake the feeling that it was being pulled rather than pushed when loaded up during cornering – and you got the impression that there wats nothing you could do to mitigate that.

Particularly tiresome was that the car’s powertrain, which wouldn't rev as smoothly or as keenly as other four-pot diesels, and the automatic gearbox felt slow-witted at times.

Thankfully the E-Pace did enough elesewhere to convince that it lived up to its premium billing.

The high-speed ride was particularly well conceived. It settled nicely on motorways, and as long as you didn't ask an unreasonable amount from the chassis, body movements were not only respectably slight but also effectively cushioned.

It meant the E-Pace, despite being on the portly side, was tenacious enough to tolerate being hustled if the need arose.

The steering was unusually crisp off-centre, too, and weighted up with a progression that was probably the most pleasurable element of the entire driving experience.

However, the ride was doubtless necessarily a touch firmer than Jaguar would have liked.

The E-Pace had a low-speed ride capable of unearthing hidden road imperfections in a manner that was downright sleuthy.

It wasn't a deal-breaker, but there was a hint of brittleness at odds with the luxury brief.

Given the hardware Jaguar's chassis engineers had on offer, the E-Pace still managed to balance athleticism with comfort.

The results were acceptable for the segment but unremarkable by the standards of Jaguar itself.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

You could buy an E-Pace for £28,500 when it launched, but that only got you a car with front-wheel drive, a six-speed manual gearbox and a 148bhp 2.0-litre diesel engine.

Nowadays, you can get into an E-Pace for as little as £9000, but we'd spend a little more on a facelifted car, which got a better suite of kit and interior technology.

Residuals are set to be exceptional, bettering those of diesel rivals such as the Volvo XC40 and Audi Q3.
Richard Lane
Deputy road test editor

The D180 strikes the best compromise in terms of performance and economy, with 50mpg achievable in real-world conditions.

The later P300 plug-in hybrid which arrived as part of the facelift will appeal to those looking to avoid any large BIK tax bills.

VERDICT

Verdict

Model tested:

Rating: 7

Used Jaguar E-Pace 2017-2024 review

Stylish E-Pace misses the mark for keen drivers but a desirable SUV nevertheless

Good

Handsome, if not exactly elegant

Refined at speed, with a calming ambience

Rock-solid residual values

Bad

Lacklustre, slow-shifting powertrain

Little of Jaguar’s traditional handling polish

Expensive compared with more accomplished rivals

With the Jaguar Jaguar F-Pace being such a hit, it was inevitable that Jaguar would follow it with a smaller, more accessible compact SUV – one that could propel global sales figures beyond 250,000 for the first time.

The resulting Jaguar E-Pace was a car that hits a few highs, chiefly in its exterior design, but mostly left you disappointed at the missed opportunity to set a new benchmark in a class short on handling dynamism.

The E-Pace was hamstrung by its heavy underpinnings and, in D180 guise, had particularly lacklustre performance.

Neither moderately enticing steering nor a fairly keen front axle could quell our regret that the car didn't handle with more of the alacrity, fluency and balance we had come to expect of Gaydon’s sportier brand.

It was good enough for the segment but not quite good enough for Jaguar.

Sam Phillips

Title: Staff Writer

Sam joined the Autocar team in summer 2024 and has been a contributor since 2021. He is tasked with writing used reviews and first drives as well as updating top 10s and evergreen content on the Autocar website.

He previously led sister-title Move Electric, which covers the entire spectrum of electric vehicles, from cars to boats – and even trucks. He is an expert in new car news, used cars, electric cars, microbility, classic cars and motorsport.

Sam graduated from Nottingham Trent University in 2021 with a BA in Journalism. In his final year he produced an in-depth feature on the automotive industry’s transition to electric cars and interviewed a number of leading experts to assess our readiness for the impending ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars.

Richard Lane

Title: Deputy road test editor

Richard joined Autocar in 2017 and like all road testers is typically found either behind a keyboard or steering wheel (or, these days, a yoke).

As deputy road test editor he delivers in-depth road tests and performance benchmarking, plus feature-length comparison stories between rival cars. He can also be found presenting on Autocar's YouTube channel.

Mostly interested in how cars feel on the road – the sensations and emotions they can evoke – Richard drives around 150 newly launched makes and models every year. His job is then to put the reader firmly in the driver's seat.