Jaguar’s 1,030PS electric Type 01 has been unveiled in New York, marking arguably the biggest change in direction in the British marque’s history. It is powerful, expensive, technically ambitious and deliberately unlike the Jaguars that came before it. For traditionalists, that makes it difficult to accept. For Jaguar, that may be exactly the point.
Jaguar has finally revealed the production car that will carry one of Britain’s most famous automotive names into an entirely new era.
The new Jaguar Type 01 is a four-door, all-electric luxury GT, designed and engineered in Britain and due to enter production at JLR’s Solihull plant in 2027.
With up to 1,030PS, 1,365Nm of torque, a 118kWh usable battery and an expected EPA driving range of up to 400 miles, this is also claimed to be the most powerful, technically advanced and aerodynamic Jaguar ever engineered.
But the numbers are almost secondary.
Because Type 01 isn’t simply a new Jaguar.
It represents Jaguar starting again.
A very different kind of Jaguar
For generations, Jaguar occupied a distinctive position within the British motor industry.
Cars such as the XK120, E-Type and XJ combined performance with an unmistakably British interpretation of luxury. Long bonnets, elegant proportions, powerful engines and interiors rich in traditional materials became part of the Jaguar identity.
Even when the company moved into SUVs and electric cars with models such as the F-Pace and I-Pace, there remained a recognisable connection with the Jaguar that had gone before.
Type 01 deliberately breaks that connection.
Its arrival follows the controversial repositioning of Jaguar as a considerably more exclusive, all-electric luxury marque — accompanied by an equally controversial new visual identity and the dramatic Type 00 concept that previewed the company’s future design direction.
The reaction has been extraordinary.
Some see Jaguar abandoning decades of heritage and walking away from the qualities that made its cars desirable.
Others see precisely what Jaguar wants them to see: a British luxury marque prepared to abandon convention and create something radically different.
There appears to be increasingly little middle ground.
Is abandoning tradition actually very Jaguar?
There is, however, another way of looking at Jaguar’s decision.
Jaguar’s greatest cars weren’t created by looking backwards.
When the XK120 appeared in 1948 it was startlingly modern. The E-Type did much the same in 1961, while the original XJ established another design direction for the company at the end of that decade.
They became traditional Jaguars only with the passing of time.
That creates an interesting question around Type 01.
Would producing an electric interpretation of the old Jaguar formula really have been the more authentic approach?
Or is Jaguar’s willingness to take an enormous design risk actually closer to the philosophy that produced its most celebrated cars?
Jaguar has repeatedly used the phrase “Copy Nothing” to describe its new direction.
Type 01 certainly fulfils that brief.
Whether customers will want to buy the result is the considerably bigger question.
More than 1,000PS – and 400 miles of range
Underneath the dramatic bodywork sits Jaguar’s bespoke Jaguar Electric Architecture, or JEA.
Its 850-volt electrical system works with a 118kWh usable battery, with Jaguar targeting an EPA range of up to 400 miles. The company also quotes up to 320 miles of sustained highway-speed driving.
Rapid charging is equally ambitious.
Connected to a suitable 350kW DC charger, Jaguar says Type 01 can add around 200 miles of range in as little as 13 minutes.
Performance places the car firmly into supercar territory.
With as much as 1,030PS and 1,365Nm, Type 01 is expected to accelerate from 0-62mph in just 3.2 seconds.
Yet Jaguar isn’t presenting this as an electric supercar.
It is a luxury four-door GT — and that distinction is important.
Jaguar is moving upmarket
Perhaps the most revealing Type 01 figure isn’t its horsepower, battery capacity or acceleration.
It’s the price.
Jaguar says Type 01 will start from £130,000 when ordering opens in early 2027.
That immediately demonstrates how far the company intends to move from its previous position in the premium-car market.
Jaguar is no longer trying simply to compete with the familiar executive models from BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi.
Instead, JLR wants Jaguar to occupy its own position within the wider luxury market, sitting alongside Range Rover, Defender and Discovery while attracting a distinctly different customer.
And that customer may not be the person who previously bought a Jaguar.
That is fundamental to understanding Type 01.
Jaguar needs new customers – not just traditional Jaguar owners
The company isn’t hiding the scale of its ambition.
JLR is targeting double-digit growth over the next five years through stronger individual brand identities, a wider mix of propulsion systems across its portfolio and a greater emphasis on North America.
Jaguar will occupy a unique position within that strategy by becoming exclusively electric.
That also helps explain why Type 01 has been unveiled in New York rather than Britain.
North America is becoming a priority growth market for JLR and the new Jaguar has been conceived to appeal to a younger, affluent and more design-conscious audience — potentially customers with little emotional attachment to the Jaguars of previous generations.
That is simultaneously the great opportunity and the great risk.
Jaguar isn’t simply asking existing customers to accept an electric replacement for the XJ.
It is effectively asking a new generation of customers to discover Jaguar.
Still very much a British car
Whatever anyone thinks of Jaguar’s new styling and brand direction, there is another important part of the Type 01 story.
It remains very much a British-engineered and British-built car.
Jaguar Type 01 will be manufactured at Solihull using the dedicated JEA platform, while its electric drive units and battery packs will be produced in Wolverhampton.
Pressed body panels will come from Halewood on Merseyside.
JLR says production-line preparations are already at an advanced stage ahead of manufacturing beginning in 2027.
The programme forms part of the £15-18 billion five-year investment programme announced by JLR in 2024. According to the company, £11.5 billion has already been invested in engineering, design and manufacturing for its next-generation vehicles, with the majority of that spending taking place in Britain.
Nearly 9,000 employees at Solihull have also been retrained for electric vehicle production, together with another 1,500 people across JLR’s wider West Midlands operations.
So whatever arguments surround the reinvention of Jaguar, Type 01 represents a significant commitment to British automotive engineering and manufacturing.
From XK120 to E-Type, XJ – and now Type 01
Perhaps history will ultimately provide the fairest judgement.
The XK120 established Jaguar internationally.
The E-Type became an automotive icon.
The XJ defined the Jaguar luxury saloon for generations.
And now Jaguar wants Type 01 to establish what the name means in the electric age.
But there is a crucial difference.
Those earlier cars evolved and strengthened a recognisable Jaguar identity.
Type 01 asks us to reconsider that identity almost completely.
The engine has gone.
Much of the familiar styling language has gone.
The traditional luxury positioning has changed.
The price point has moved dramatically upwards.
Even the customer Jaguar hopes to attract is changing.
That makes Type 01 far more significant than simply another new electric car.
It is one of Britain’s best-known automotive marques placing almost everything on a single new idea of what Jaguar should become.
The Motoring Echo Verdict
Jaguar Type 01 will divide opinion — and perhaps that is precisely what Jaguar intended.
For those of us who associate the marque with the sweeping elegance of the XK120, E-Type and XJ, this new Jaguar can feel almost wilfully disconnected from its past.
Motoring Echo sits naturally closer to that traditional school of British automotive design. We believe heritage matters, particularly when a manufacturer possesses a history as rich as Jaguar’s.
There is something special about seeing a car and immediately knowing it is a Jaguar.
Whether Type 01 provides that same instant recognition is much more debatable.
But dismissing it simply because it isn’t the Jaguar we remember would also overlook an uncomfortable historical truth.
Jaguar’s greatest cars weren’t created by being cautious.
They became great because Jaguar was prepared to produce something distinctive, desirable and occasionally audacious.
Type 01 is certainly audacious.
It is also enormously powerful, technologically ambitious, British engineered and British built. And in an automotive world where increasingly similar electric cars compete for attention, nobody could reasonably accuse Jaguar of disappearing quietly into the crowd.
The question is therefore not simply whether traditional Jaguar enthusiasts like Type 01.
It is whether an entirely new generation of luxury-car buyers will desire it enough to spend upwards of £130,000.
Jaguar has already succeeded in making the world talk about the company again.
Now comes the considerably harder part.
It has to make the world want a Jaguar again.
