2027 Jaguar Type 01 breaks cover with $300K price

Jaguar this morning revealed the production version of the Type 01 sedan, a 757kW four-door electric GT that will spearhead the British brand’s return to Australia in 2027, with pricing starting from about $300,000 plus on-road costs.

While Jaguar hasn’t pushed up to Rolls-Royce territory as some thought it would, the Type 01’s 7 Series- and S-Class-like pricing nevertheless represents a move upmarket for the brand, and it won’t replace cars like the F-Type and F-Pace.

The brand’s local management says its new customer base likely already drives a premium SUV or performance sedan and wants to move into something rarer, with considerable road presence.

In other words, the Type 01 is intended to tempt buyers away from familiar but staid German luxury machinery rather than simply win back the walnut-and-leather crowd of days gone by.

Jaguar managing director Rawdon Glover told carsales that “this car is about repositioning Jaguar at that price point – that’s the job it needs to do before our attention and focus gets taken off into other areas”.

The numbers underline how dramatic the repositioning is: Glover said Jaguar’s previous UK average transaction price was around £65,000 ($123,000), whereas the Type 01 is expected to transact from about £125,000 ($236,000) in its home market.

Yet even a $300,000 price point is not that detached from today’s sports-luxury market, at least among European brands, with potential rivals like the plug-in hybrid BMW X5 priced in the upper $200,000 range, while the Porsche Taycan can stretch to $419,000.

The Type 01’s direct competition will span the BMW i7, Mercedes-Benz EQS, Audi e-tron GT and the Taycan.

Glover says he believes the Type 01 can break out of the sluggish sales that have plagued the high-end EV market in key markets, saying that “part of the reason EVs have not sold at higher price points is that much of the design has been too homogeneous”.

To that end, the Type 01 is very striking in the metal. It’s 5235mm long with a 3200mm wheelbase but sits only 1403mm tall, riding on enormous 23-inch wheels with a very long 898mm gap between the front axle and windscreen for a classic RWD dash-to-axle ratio.

Inside, the Type 01 has a modernist architectural feel, with unadorned leather or Ultrafabrics seat upholstery and a remarkably subtle 24-inch OLED widescreen ahead of the driver, supplemented by a smaller seven-inch central panel for climate and audio controls.

The cabin is split by a full-length central spine with brass-inspired anodised aluminium trim. A Panoramic Soundbar forms part of a 38-speaker Meridian audio system, while there’s a digital rear-view mirror … and no glass window at the back.

Despite its vast external proportions, the back seat is not the priority. A pair of six-foot adults do fit, but Glover told carsales Jaguar is content to relinquish the chauffeur-driven market to sibling brand Range Rover.

Under the skin is a 118kWh (usable) NMC battery with an 850-volt architecture promising 350kW charging, and 10 to 80 per cent can be replenished in 22 minutes.

The Type 01 is only the first model to use a new bespoke Jaguar Electric Architecture (JEA) platform. A more practical second model will follow with SUV-like elements, but that car is due no earlier than 2028.

Expect to see at least two additional Type 01 variants, probably with less and more power, before the car enters production early next year, though Jaguar has confirmed there will be no single-motor RWD version.

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