16 things you need to know about the new Jaguar Type 01

It only says ‘Type 01’ in one place on the car’s exterior – a subtle, flush transfer on the edge of the bonnet 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?’

This traffic-stopping look was frozen sometime in 2021. TG has seen top secret photographs of the clay model being massaged in the design studio. The sculptors are wearing Covid facemasks. That explains why the bonnet’s edges are two metres apart. The designers were social distancing.

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.

Throughout the run-up to the Type 01, people have speculated the car would be priced somewhere between the Porsche Taycan (£90,000) and Bentley Flying Spur (£190,000). Jaguar tells us the base price will be around £120,000, but it expects the price ‘centre of gravity’ – basically what spending averages at after options – to be in the region of £150,000.

Jaguar interviewed 2,500 people across six continents during Type 01 development to test the water, 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.

No surprise here, as EVs democratise horsepower totals that were once the preserve of unobtanium-fuelled hypercars. The tri-motor Type 01 develops 1,035bhp, whooshing it from 0-62mph in 3.2sec and 150mph 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.

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.

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 450 miles. 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 575 miles claimed by the Mercedes EQS, which is part car, part eel.

No Jaguar has ever been slipperier, with a 0.23Cd drag factor 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 racecar-spec carbon tub at the heart of the W1 hypercar is rated to 51,000 Nm / degree. Jaguar back to Le Mans confirmed!

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.

Eat your heart out, Adrian Newey. Both real-life aero modelling and computer simulation were employed to rack up those 7,000 aero tests, which helped Jaguar slightly modify the stark bodywork to ease drag. Motorised shutters up front added 27 miles of range on the EPA test cycle by only allowing airflow to the powertrain when needed. Jagfolk 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?

Jaguar insiders we spoke to referred to the Type 01 as a "2+2 seater". Normally only couples like an Aston Martin DB12 or Porsche 911 are dubbed 2+2s. But despite having back doors and being over five metres long, the cartoonish Jag isn’t as spacious in the back as a Cadillac Celestiq, Rolls-Royce Spectre, or even a BMW 5 Series. The high centre console and low roofline create a hemmed-in feeling – this isn’t one for the chauffeur market.

You saw that from the pictures. You also noted the huge rear fin and thought ‘well it must have a rear-view 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 rear view mirror, the screen lives atop the dashboard on the ‘soundbar’ speaker.

…apart from rumours of a 21in 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?

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 tonnes. Bosh. 1,500 hours were spent tooling it up. Think about that when you see someone bashing into it with a supermarket trolley.

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 future, Land Rover won’t share their foundations. Fancy.