The new Jaguar F‑Pace is a tech fest

Jaguar’s de facto luxury flagship during the XJ’s hiatus, the F-Pace looks pretty much the same as before but a little smoother and stronger after a lights, bumpers, air intakes and grille redesign. So it’s still a looker among SUVs, although reasons to put the F-Pace on your shopping list are likely to centre more on its new-found plushness and new-generation powertrains, all but one of which feature some form of hybridised electric trickery.

While the lipstick-red trim highlights of the car in the press pictures may not be to everyone’s taste, it’s clear that with this new interior the F-Pace’s weak links have been addressed – with knobs on. There have been Land Rovers with nicer plastics than the F-Pace has endured. No longer.

Loads inside is new – seats, centre console, controls (the drive selector is no longer the rotary rise-up number), door trims, wood veneers, aluminium trim, cabin purification system, stowage bins, grab handles and even the stitching all get a makeover. But what sums up this new model best is what’s on the centre of the dashboard.

And that of course is what no luxury car can be without these days: a whopping touchscreen display. Jag’s is an 11.4-inch curved-glass HD item, housed in a magnesium alloy casing. It’s three times brighter and 48 per cent larger than the previous F-Pace offering, while also being easier to navigate, according to Jaguar. That’s thanks to simplified menus and the brand’s new PiviPro infotainment system. The configurable driver display is new, too, and able to show full-screen navigation mapping.

All this smart new infotainment can be enjoyed in a more hushed F-Pace. In what Jag claims is a segment first, the F-Pace is available with an active noise cancellation system to reduce road noise.

The new range stays with familiar trim levels but gets an array of new diesel and petrol powertrains – most mild hybrids but one new plug-in hybrid – that reflects the recent roll-out of electrified models in the Land/Range Rover line-ups. There’s now just one F-Pace – the £47,545 P250 entry petrol model – that doesn’t get an electrical helping hand.

You can choose between four and six-cylinder diesels, all boosted by 48-volt mild hybrid starter-generators and ranging in power between 163 and 300PS, and four or six-pot petrol units. These offer between 250 and 404PS, with the latter being the first plug-in hybrid F-Pace and thus the only one with an electric-only ability, up to 33 miles.

This P400e is very much the tech flagship and with a price to match: in top R-Dynamic HSE trim it costs from £64,490. Its turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder paired to an 105kW electric motor ensure there’s plenty of torque as well as the 404PS of power: 640Nm in fact. It gets from 0-60mph in 5.0 seconds (a tad quicker than the six-pot petrol) while claiming CO2 emissions of 49g/km.

The new range kicks off with the hybridised diesel D165 at £40,860. It’s least-powerful version of the brand’s new-generation Ingenium diesel motor and here it offers 165PS along with 45mpg and 163g/km of CO₂. All the new F-Paces are available now.