Jaguar I-Pace hit with fresh wave of updates for 2023

11th January 2023

Bob Murray

Before e-tron, ID, EQ, Ioniq and a host of Chinese names you’ve never heard of, the electric sedan market dominated by Tesla was gate-crashed by the Jaguar I-Pace. The I-Pace arrived almost five years ago now, and in that time it’s been acclaimed – the car garnered no fewer than 92 global awards – but seen its early advantage inexorably come under attack in what is suddenly a crowded electric market. Time then for an I-Pace refresh.

As all those awards testify, the I-Pace got a great deal right when launched in 2018 and most of it – the design certainly, and the whopping 90kWh battery – remains on the money today. So it could be argued that not much needed to change, and in fact not much has – which you will already have guessed from looking at the pictures. This is more a case of the I-Pace having its showroom smile buffed up.

The result is that an already good-looking car – lower and more cab-forward than rivals and less lumpish than German SUV equivalents – gets a cool new edge. Not much has been done to achieve it: there’s a new blanked off grille with equally new black and silver leaper badge, grey finish to aero elements, more body colour components and new satin finish paint in two shades of grey. There are new diamond-turned wheels, 22 inches on some models, and standard Black Pack (on all but the entry model). It’s all just enough to make you look twice, while a satin finish and lots of grey are right on trend.

There are no updates to the cabin but in the UK there is a new top model, the 400 Sport, which gets a slight spec tweak in keeping with Jaguar’s new mantra of enhancing its cars “richness”. Chief addition is 14-way adjustable heated and cooled seats covered in Windsor leather.

400 Sport sounds more appealing than it is – there’s nothing sportier about it and all I-Paces have 400PS (298kW). It does come as standard with adaptive air suspension, the 22-inch wheels and a boot lid spoiler though.

Performance (0-62 in 4.5 seconds for all versions) and charging arrangements are all as before. You can add driving range to your I-Pace at a rate of 22 miles per plugged-in hour (via the simplest 7kW home plug-in) through 33 miles every 60 minutes with a home 11kW three-phase charger, to taking on board enough juice for 78 miles in 15 minutes if you are lucky enough to come across a public 100kW DC fast charger. The battery size is 90kWh as before and WLTP range stays at 292 miles.

The 2023 I-Pace is available to order now. A new four-model range kicks off with the R-Dynamic S at £70,000 and finishes with the 400 Sport at £10,000 more.