Jaguar Type 01 Unveiled: A 1,000bhp Electric GT to Reboot the Brand

Jaguar has lifted the covers on the Type 01, a four-door electric grand tourer that carries much of the weight of the brand's future. Prices start at around £120,000, with well-equipped cars expected to sit near £150,000 and some bespoke examples likely to pass £200,000. Jaguar is targeting an on-sale date of February 2027, with the first customer deliveries following by the middle of that year.

The car is the product of a difficult stretch for the company. Jaguar had been unprofitable for years, and tightening rules on large petrol and diesel cars, combined with a shrinking pool of traditional premium buyers, left it with few easy options. Rather than shrink the business or make cosmetic changes to existing models, it committed about £2.25 billion to a new all-aluminium platform called the Jaguar Electric Architecture, or JEA, and built the Type 01 on top of it. The price bracket it chooses places the car above the top end of Mercedes-Benz's range and below Bentley.

Its looks are deliberately provocative. At 5.2 metres long, the Type 01 is a little shorter than a Bentley Flying Spur and has a cab-rearward shape, a long bonnet and a low roof. The front has no traditional grille, just a blank panel framed by slim headlights. The tail lights are hidden behind horizontal slats, and there is no rear window, a choice Jaguar made to increase rear headroom, as Polestar did on its 4. Rear visibility comes from a roof-mounted camera feeding a screen across the cabin. Jaguar's designers insist the car is "a copy of nothing," though some insiders see echoes of the long-nosed XJS from the 1970s.

Under the skin, the Type 01 uses a tri-motor layout. The front motor handles steady motorway cruising to save energy, while the two rear motors join in during harder driving and can vector torque independently. Jaguar claims a 0-62mph time of 3.2 seconds and a 62-112mph time of 4.0 seconds, a figure its engineers see as a better measure of sustained performance. Official WLTP range is 450 miles, and the car can add around 200 miles in half an hour on a 350kW charger.

Jaguar is not pretending everyone will love it. Its global marketing director, Carlee Hardaker, said customer research produced both enthusiastic scores and strongly negative ones, and the company is comfortable with that. The brand says it has 50,000 people on "keep me informed" lists worldwide, and 80 per cent of them have never owned a Jaguar. For a company that needs new buyers, the Type 01 is a bet that a bold shape will matter more than broad approval.