Right now, in November 2024, you can’t order a new Jaguar in the UK. You can still get an F-Pace in some places, but here, in Jag’s home market, your only choices if you walk into a Jaguar dealer will be something from existing stock or a used car.
That’s not set to change until 2026, when Jaguar will launch the first model of its reborn, all-electric range, and this is the first glance at that car.
Described as a ‘four-door GT’, it’s expected to sit in the popular genre of low-slung electric saloons alongside the likes of the Tesla Model S, Porsche Taycan, Audi E-Tron GT and Lucid Air.
Jaguar EV prototype – side
Jag, though, is vocal about targeting a more upmarket, luxurious market than before, chasing higher margins over greater sales volume, so we can expect the finished car to be more Bentley than Beemer in the way it’s positioned.
The prototype you see here is, unsurprisingly, very camouflaged, but it does give a few things away. Namely, there’s a noticeably bluff, upright front end, something more akin to Jags of the ’70s and ’80s than the swoopy, curvy cars we’ve seen from the company in recent times.
There’s then what appears to be a rather steeply raked, almost XJS-like profile to the rear windscreen, although this could just be extra addenda stuck on the prototype to throw us off the scent. Based on a sole teaser image we’ve had of the concept version of the car, the rear end is expected to have a fastback-ish profile that tapers down into an angular, squared-off tail, and we can see some evidence of that here too.
Jaguar EV prototype – front
Whether the rectangular grille on this prototype is any indication of what the production car might look like or just more clever camouflage is anyone’s guess, but the whole thing has a low-slung profile, with a long wheelbase and a distinctively cab-rearward shape – radically different and more traditional-looking compared to Jag’s only other EV so far, the niche-defying, cab-forward I-Pace.
It’ll likely be a good year or so yet before we see the finished production car, but Jaguar has confirmed a date of 2 December this year for the debut of a concept previewing the car. Once it’s on sale the year after next, it’s set to be joined by two more initial models, an SUV and a coupe.
