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Jaguar turns its polarizing Type 00 prototype into a four-door Type 01 GT
Jaguar showed the production Type 01 in New York on Tuesday, claiming up to 400 miles of EPA range and 1,030 PS from three motors. Owners will judge it on the parts they touch every drive, and so far the evidence is launch specs and a ride in the passenger seat.
The Product Desk
What happened
- Jaguar opened its all-electric reinvention in November 2024 with a rebrand that showed no cars, and unveiled the Type 00 prototype a month later.
- Some people who hated the prototype went after Jaguar's own staff, accusing them of betraying the company's 90-year history.
- Gerry McGovern, the JLR chief creative officer who signed off on the design and the no-car ad campaign, is among the major departures since.
- The production car keeps the prototype's low roofline, long hood and 23-inch wheels, but adds extra doors and a slightly softer front.
Compiled by The Product DeskSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- constraint With no rear windscreen, the Type 01's rear view is only as good as the ClearSight camera and the screen it feeds, and there is no glass to fall back on.
- decision A useful Type 01 test drive has to include changing climate and audio while moving, because the 7-inch touchscreen is the only way to reach them.
- exposure The finished car's reception now lands on managing director Rawdon Glover, who stayed confident through the no-sales period that seeing it would make the rebrand make sense.
To see what is behind a Jaguar Type 01, the driver looks at the base of the windscreen. There is no rear windscreen. A camera feed Jaguar calls ClearSight sits in the full-width soundbar instead, set at the height of the door mirrors so the eye has less refocusing to do than with most such displays [7]. To change the cabin temperature or the audio, the driver uses a 7-inch smartphone-style touchscreen between the front seats. Wired found no physical switchgear [14].
Jaguar's pitch is about arrival. Its press material calls the car "A bold grand tourer that never arrives unnoticed, like all the best Jaguars of the past" [2]. The launch figures fit that pitch: 62 mph from standstill in 3.2 seconds, then another 4 seconds to 112 mph [8]. Wired's reviewer, whose trip JLR partly paid for [17], wrote: "I've been driven in it, and it feels like the acceleration never ends" [6].
On this evidence the Type 01 is for someone who wants to be noticed arriving and will accept a camera in place of a rear window to get it [2]. That owner will use the sprint now and then. The climate screen, the rear view and the highway range come up on nearly every drive. The EPA rating is up to 400 miles from a 118 kWh usable battery [19], but Jaguar's own figure at sustained highway speed is up to 320 miles [16], a gap of 80 miles, or 20 percent [18]. For a grand tourer 5,235 mm long [15], 320 is the figure to plan a trip around. A 13-minute stop on a 350 kW charger adds up to 200 miles, by Jaguar's numbers [12].
Of the changes from prototype to production, the extra doors are the one an owner uses daily, each time someone gets into the back [3]. Whether the finished car wins over people the Type 00 fight put off cannot be read from a launch event [10]. Wired's account covers the car and the reveal. It does not report orders [9].
Anyone relaunching a product after a public fight can sort each feature on two questions: does the user meet it on every use, and could anyone judge it on launch day. On the Type 01, the extra doors land in the every-use, judged-on-launch-day box. The sprint and the 23-inch wheels are occasional and easy to judge at an event [3]. Every-use and still unjudged are the camera rear view, the touch-only climate controls and the 320-mile highway range, since no owner has lived with them yet [1]. Only a long trip will test the charging claim. I'd weight the every-use, unjudged box most heavily, whether you are a buyer deciding to wait or a dealer deciding how many demonstrators to order. The tradeoff is time: that box fills only with owner reports, and launch coverage fills the other three first.
What to watch
- Jaguar's price and delivery timing for the Type 01, which will define which buyers it is actually competing for.
- Independent long-distance tests of the 320-mile highway range and the 200-miles-in-13-minutes charging claim.
- Reviews written from the driver's seat on living with the ClearSight camera rear view and the touch-only climate controls.