Trail & error
To discover whether the new hybird F-PACE is any good at off-roading, we attempt one of the UK's longest green lanes in a P400e
IT’S WHEN I become stuck in the mud, all four wheels turning but the car not moving, that I start to question my recent life choices. I’m not talking about forgetting my mother’s birthday (although that was a disaster) or buying too much milk but rather taking an F-PACE along Rudland Rigg, one of the longest green lanes in UK Why did I not test the size of the boot when visiting an expensive hotel in the South of France instead?
But in defence of my choice, following the F-PACE’s launch in 2016 I’ve taken the car across the UK and through several parts of Europe but the one place I’ve never driven it is off-road. Wit h the model now seven years old and recently refreshed – which includes a plug-in hybrid option – it’s time to change that.
Rudland Rigg starts at a nondescript corner a few miles outside the village of Gillamoor, deep in the North Yorkshire Moors. With it being a BOAT (byway open to all traffic) there’s no gate; I simply turn onto the rough track and hope for the best.
At ten miles long, it makes Rudland Rigg one of the longest green lanes in the UK. But thanks to its gravelcovered surface, it’s supposedly one of the easiest, making it perfect for a SUV that’s more about the ‘sport’ than it is the ‘utility’. Note the word ‘supposedly’…
To begin with the going is easy and despite the steep incline the car makes light work of the rough surface and loose gravel. Worried about damaging the road tyres on the sharp stones, I take it slowly, so slowly in fact that I’m still running on electric power only.
Since this F-PACE R-Dynamic SE is a P400e it’s powered by Jaguar’s 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder 296bhp Ingenium petrol engine together with a single 141bhp electric motor. But unlike the I-PACE that has a motor on each axle, in this PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) version of the F-PACE, it’s attached to the car’s eight-speed automatic transmission.
The engine and the motor work well together, giving a surprisingly impressive punch – 60mph is reached in just five seconds and there’s a surprisingly fruity exhaust note. But push the throttle too hard or too often and it quickly uses the battery.
The electric motor is more about aiding economy than performance and Jaguar reckons the P400e will return between 49-57mpg depending on the size of the tyre. But according to the trip computer, the best I could achieve during the time I had with the car was 38. Admittedly the XF 2.0D MHEV (mild hybrid electric vehicle) I drove to the top of Scotland last year [see JW August 2021, p74] returned 45mpg, but with petrol being much cheaper than diesel it results in the two cars having similar running costs.
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