Jaguar's Type 01 Makes Its Case as a Luxury Electric GT

Jaguar picked a converted New York taxi depot in Chelsea to show the production Type 01, the car that grew out of the Type 00 concept the brand has been teasing for more than two years. Guests arrived by Range Rover, past an earlier press exhibit that included a full-size silhouette of the car and a 3.5m aluminium panel the company calls the "impossible panel." When the smoke cleared on stage, the car looked very much like the renderings and the concept. That was the intention. Jaguar wants people to see the Type 01 as a faithful version of its original idea, not a diluted one.

The car is a four-door, four-seat fastback that sits low to the ground, with 23in wheels, a roofline under 1,400mm and no rear window. The long bonnet is more than styling. It houses one of the battery packs and the high-voltage hardware that would normally sit beneath the cabin floor. That lets Jaguar lower the seating position and puts occupants inside the car rather than on top of a skateboard-style platform. The specification is a 1,016bhp, three-motor powertrain, a 5.2m body and a 3.2m wheelbase. Rear-wheel steering and a 50:50 weight balance are central to the handling pitch, and the car is due on the road in mid-next year.

Jaguar says its designers spent their time studying the company's own history, especially 1970s coupés such as the XJC and XJS, rather than benchmarking rival electric cars. Rawdon Glover, the managing director, said the brand needs buyers to want this car the way they once wanted great Jaguars of the past. Some of that message is a response to the backlash that followed the 2024 "Copy Nothing" campaign, which many took as a rejection of the marque's identity. Jaguar now presents the Type 01 as a return to what made its coupés desirable.

The price is the bigger shift. The average Jaguar retail price has been around £60,000, and the company wants to roughly double that. The Type 01 is aimed at about £150,000, with 60 launch cars offered in London Red or Blue Ultramarine, the colours of the concept, and a bespoke programme similar to the one Range Rover uses. Glover said Jaguar wants to build "one fewer car than the market demands," which signals a deliberately small volume. The Type 01 is expected to be a niche model, and the next Jaguar, an SUV on a different architecture, is widely expected to carry more of the sales.

Whether enough buyers will pay £150,000 for an electric four-seat GT remains the open question. The launch also exposed how much work sits outside the design studio. A reporter who tried the brand's website after the event was sent to an accident repair centre when searching for a nearby retailer, and a marketing email link returned a 404 error. Jaguar can make a striking car, but it still has to make the buying experience match it.