Jaguar E-PACE P250 AWD Review: Is This Entry-level SUV Daily Driver Material?
Exterior
Jaguar’s styling design as of late has been excellent. The entire line-up stands out from the crowd as smartly-styled, sharp looking rides. Only one person in the office doesn’t find the E-PACE attractive, and he’s wrong about everything, so his vote doesn’t count. To that end, a neighbor actually flagged me down to ask about the car. I bring a lot of interesting press cars home, but this was a first. She told me that she saw the gorgeous color and the Jaguar badge and did some research on Jag’s website about the car. She now wants one.
The standard E-PACE, unlike the R-Dynamic models, wears off-road-inspired cladding around the lower edges of the body. I personally prefer an all-black look here, but that’s a nitpick.
Caesium Blue is a bold color, and it also reaffirms an important styling decision that consumers should keep in mind before buying. The E-PACE needs the 20-inch wheels to look it’s best. The SE trim bumps up from the standard 18-inch wheels to 19s, but the broadsided SUV styling makes the smaller, more pragmatic wheels look undersized and out of proportion. Yes, it’s another nitpick, mainly because I have nothing bad to say beyond that about the exterior styling.
So, it’s good to look at, but you spend most of your time inside a car looking out, not outside staring in, so how does the interior stack up?
Interior
Overall, the interior is an excellent place to spend time. Barring a few cheap plasticky bits, like the shifter surround, the materials inside this Jaguar luxury SUV are exactly what consumers have come to expect in this segment. The dashboard is a blend of padded leather, aluminum-look trim, fancy touch screens and buttons. Similarly, the door cards, arm rests and seats are leather-bound, and, for the most part, it all feels quality. That said, the steering wheel looks and feels too cheap to match everything else at play here.
Actually, let’s talk about those seats for a minute. The E-PACE SE comes with leather, 14-way adjustable seats. This particular car has $1,530-worth of seating upgrades. That chunk of change gets ‘Light Oyster Windsor’ leather, which is very supple, and 18-way adjustment up front. I love the thrones in this car, but if the standard SE seats are comfortable enough for you, and, with 14-way adjustment, I’m not sure how they couldn’t be, stick with those and save yourself the cash.
While on the topic of seating, the E-PACE easily fits four adults inside. There is the fifth seat in the second row, but, really, consider it decoration more than seating. While the roof line does slope a bit, back seat passengers well over six feet tall will ride in comfort. Head, and knee room is ample. Oh, and the E-PACE has charging ports everywhere. Every single passenger in the car can charge at least one device, if not two.
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Much like the ample knee room, the trunk space is commodious and few people will ever max out the storage space in the E-PACE. The back seats also fold down flat, in case you ever want to transport 2×4 sheets, or whatever else strikes your fancy.
In fact, my only consistent qualm with the E-PACE is a uniquely American one: the cup holders. The E-PACE has two cup holders between the transmission lever and the arm rest, which is great. Less great is that they use three rubber grips to hold your beverage of choice in place. Those rubber arms have so much grip, in fact, that I actually damaged a cup trying to get it into the cup holder. Fortunately, I was able to collect my crumpled Coke, before the interior turned into a Coke-and-oyster leather float. Similarly, yanking a cup out of the cup holders, once in place, requires a firm grip and a notable amount of force.
Jaguar Touch Pro Infotainment
Jaguar’s 10-inch Touch Pro infotainment screen is slick, and, in tandem with the interactive driver display in the dash, offers all of the information and tech one could ever want from a car. That is, of course, barring Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Those two features have not yet made it to the little Jag SUV. Beyond that, the display offers an incredible amount of user configuration, to display things such as fuel economy, and the trip computer. That said, because there is so much information available and buttons to play with, it can initially be overwhelming when trying to find simple things, such as the instant MPG readout. I got it sorted, but it took about 15 minutes of button-pressing, and a quick glance over the owner’s manual, to understand how everything in the E-PACE works.
Paired with the Jaguar Touch Pro system is a 380 watt Meridian audio system. It can go loud enough to blow your eardrums out, and offers such a level of audio fidelity and clarity that you can pick out which backing guitarist in your favorite rock-n-roll band was nursing a hangover in the recording studio. Though, don’t let your 16-year-old kid wirelessly pair their phone to the stereo and play their music. The ultimate lack of heart-shaking, thundering bass will disappoint them.
Oh, and did I mention the knobs? Some manufacturers are slowly moving all of the interior controls to their touch screen systems. This looks nice, but can be a burden to deal with when trying to focus on driving. Jaguar has done drivers a favor by offering a number of knobs and buttons to use, for things like the climate control and radio volume. The fancy touch screen is nice, but nothing will replace the tactility and ease of use that physical buttons and knobs offer drivers.
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