Type 01 starts at £130,000 with 320-mile range
JLR unveiled the all-electric Jaguar Type 01 in New York this week, a four-door “Grand Tourer” whose long bonnet deliberately harks back to the brand’s 1960s E-Type and whose minimum price is £130,000. The model is the first physical vehicle to emerge from Jaguar’s 2024 rebrand and is expected to be the first of three new electric designs from the marque.
The Type 01’s electric motors produce about 1,000 horsepower, allowing it to accelerate from 0 to 62 mph in 3.2 seconds, according to JLR. The company said the car has a range, at “sustained highway speed,” of up to 320 miles, and described it as “the most technically advanced, powerful and aerodynamic Jaguar ever engineered.”
The launch follows a 2024 rebranding campaign that drew a furious backlash in the press and on social media. JLR’s first step was a surreal advertisement showing models in brightly coloured outfits alongside a new Jaguar logo but no cars. Two weeks later, then-design chief Gerry McGovern unveiled two radical concept cars in “Miami Pink” and “London Blue” on a Miami stage, telling the audience that “Jaguar has no desire to be loved by everybody.” Critics accused the company of betraying its heritage in favour of going “woke,” and the “Barbie pink” colour choice was widely derided.
The reinvention had been mapped out in early 2023, when JLR pledged £15 billion in new models and technologies. Jaguar itself had been struggling: the brand, once an intrinsic part of “Swinging Sixties British cool” that supplied E-Types to Brigitte Bardot and Steve McQueen, had been losing ground to Audi and BMW among middle-ranking corporate executives.
Matthias Schmidt of Schmidt Automotive Research said Jaguar “had lost its lustre” and that its core demographic “gave up on the brand years ago, so they effectively had nothing to lose.” He argued the 2024 controversy served a commercial purpose: “It brought Jaguar from the back pages to the front pages, given that it was dying in a crowded international market. Everyone is now talking about what would have been another boring product.”
JLR wound down production of its old Jaguar models in 2024 and 2025. Since the Miami event, the company has parted ways with the agency behind the rebrand and installed a new chief executive; McGovern has also left the company.
Automotive journalist Steve Fowler called the launch “a last throw of the dice.” “JLR has struggled to make serious money with Jaguar in the past, and that’s what it’s all about,” he said. “The car is good enough to do it. Whether the Jaguar brand is good enough remains to be seen.”
Ginny Buckley, founder of the electric-car website Electrifying.com, said the controversy had obscured the substantive question. “Forget the controversy, the culture wars and the pink concept car,” she said. “What ultimately matters is whether Jaguar has built something extraordinary enough to justify blowing up everything it stood for before.” She added that the next test would be sales: “the next challenge will be getting people to buy it.”
The Type 01 enters a luxury electric segment that includes established competitors such as Porsche and Mercedes-AMG, as well as Chinese brands including Denza.