LONDON, June 13 — The E-Pace compact SUV is already proving to be a considerable success for Jaguar.
But the British luxury manufacturer isn’t sitting on its laurels with the E-Pace as it’s already enhancing the popular luxury crossover by broadening its range of engines and adding adaptive suspension and AI tech to the menu.
At the moment the E-Pace is available with 247 and 296 bhp engines, but a new unit is being added with 197 bhp to sit in the range below the two existing powerplants. Although the top speed has yet to be revealed, the 2.0-litre Ingenium petrol engine will propel the Jaguar to 60 mph from a standing start in 7.7 seconds, and commentators expect the top speed to be somewhere around 132 mph.
Fuel economy is a claimed 34.4 mpg combined, but there is a slight anomaly when it comes to the CO2 emissions of this unit. At 186g/kg, the emissions of the new 2.0-liter are higher than the more powerful engines already offered in the E-Pace, but the emissions of those two will rise when the new WLTP testing system comes into full force.
Although adaptive suspension isn’t new to Jaguar, it wasn’t available with the E-Pace when it was launched last year. Jaguar’s Adaptive Dynamics system will now be an available E-Pace option though, which means the XJ will be the only model in the current Jaguar portfolio not to feature the advanced suspension. The system allows the driver to choose between Normal and Dynamic modes, with the former focusing on comfort while the latter is more about agility.
Perhaps the biggest enhancement to the E-Pace is the inclusion of Jaguar’s self-learning technology, Smart Settings, which made its debut on the all-electric I-PACE.
The system is designed to learn the driver’s habits and anticipate their needs to make life easier. It means an E-Pace equipped with the system will recognize the driver when they are approaching the vehicle, based on both a key fob and smartphone Bluetooth signal.
The vehicle will then start to adjust the seat, climate and infotainment system based on the normal preferences of that particular driver.
Over a period of time, algorithms will work to tailor driver settings based on time, location, weather and behaviour patterns.
For example, this could lead to the system learning to pre-heat the steering wheel and seats on a cold day, or perhaps change the media source on a particular day of the week or time of day because it’s learned that’s what that driver normally does.
The system is also capable of storing up to eight different driver profiles.— AFP-Relaxnews
