The general industry-wide shift towards making cleaner, less cluttered interiors is mirrored in the new Jaguar XE, whose dashboard is dominated by a central touchscreen.
Around it, there are eight buttons that are mostly first-tier menu shortcuts, and there are just two discreet rows of push-buttons below the screen. All are very straightforward and logical, too – you can control the temperature without having to bother the touchscreen, for example – if lacking in outright character and flair.
Colours are reserved – at least on R-Sport models, although less overtly ‘sporting’ trim levels can move away from black – and there aren’t detail touches like the slow-rotating air vents or electrically buttoned glovebox opening of the early XFs. That’s probably sensible when you work out the cost of fitting them compared with the number of people for whom it’s a deal-breaker. The ‘surprise and delight’ will come elsewhere, Jaguar hopes.
But what’s in place is good. It feels respectably well assembled, the perceived quality of materials is fairly high and things are laid out logically. The gentle twist and rise of the automatic gear selector is, to be fair, still a neat touch and, coupled with an electronic handbrake switch, makes plenty of room in the centre of the transmission tunnel for an armrest, two large cupholders and an array of switches to adjust the drive modes. More on those later.
