DRIVE STORY
We pit the new XE D200 with Jaguar’s mild hybrid diesel engine against the Buttertubs Pass in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales
WHETHER IT’S wine, children or art, describing something as the best is highly subjective and there’s rarely a clear winner. But when it comes to the best driver’s road in the UK, the Buttertubs Pass in the Yorkshire Dales National Park usually comes out on top.
With its challenging corners, fast straights and stunning scenery, it’s easy to understand why it’s held in such high regard. Even a curly haired, often controversial TV presenter described it as such and although we don’t always see eye-to-eye, I’ll bow to his judgement on this one.
All of this makes it the perfect location to put the recently facelifted XE through its paces. Now six years old but with a new mild hybrid diesel powertrain, is Jaguar’s smallest saloon the best choice to tame this complex road?
When running north to south, the Buttertubs Pass starts close to the picturesque village of Muker and ends at Simonstone seven miles away.
The road takes its name from several 20m-deep potholes in the limestone that farmers would lower their butter into to keep it cool during their way to market.
But I’m not here for those; I’m here for the amazing ribbon of tarmac that passes close by and the car I’ll be using, an XE 2.0D MHEV. Always one of the best chassis on its class, in 2020 it received a minor facelift which saw the inclusion of new slimmer LED headlights plus larger vents in the front bumper. The dashboard also received digital dials and new ventilation controls while the same joystick-style of gear lever as found in the F-TYPE replaced the previous rotary knob.
The big news, though, was the introduction of a 2.0-litre diesel engine with mild hybrid technology (MHEV). Unlike the F-PACE plug-in hybrid (PHEV) I tested in the June 2022 issue [60] which could be driven on battery power alone, the XE MHEV has a belt-integrated starter generator (BiSG) situated in the engine bay which harvests energy usually lost when slowing and braking. This is then stored in a 48V lithium-ion battery located beneath the boot and redeployed to a small electric motor connected to the eightspeed automatic transmission to assist the engine when accelerating. This has raised the power from 180PS (177bhp) to 204PS (201bhp), dropping the previous 0-60mph time by half a second to 6.9 seconds.
Despite being launched in 2016, I still think the XE is a good-looking car, this top of
