MARKE IAN CALLUM
MARKE IAN CALLUM DIRECTOR OF DESIGN “The freedom to design something so different for Jaguar and the potential that came along with that was hugely exciting,” says Ian Callum about starting work on the I-PACE in 2014. “I was determined from the very beginning that this would be a very different-looking car, which reflected its electric powertrain. You can become so entrenched in a motor car regarding how it’s built up and made – but electrification offers this opportunity to create something new, without those constraints. It was a first principle, ground-up notion that could, by its nature, dictate how the future of the electric vehicle might look – and not just for Jaguar.” Callum and his design team followed the principles of a mid-engine sports car design that visually placed the mass of the I-PACE forward. It creates an exciting form that is inspired by Callum’s Jaguar C-X75 hybrid supercar concept of 2010. “It’s clearly a very defined and different profile than you would expect of an SUV. We wanted to emphasize that an SUV doesn’t have to look static,” Callum explains. “The I-PACE doesn’t give the impression of being a typical SUV, which is good, because I didn’t want people to define it in any specific way. I wanted to design a car that came naturally from its underpinnings, combined with the inherent exaggeration and excitement of a Jaguar. But what’s nice about the I-PACE is that it’s designed with complete integrity. It’s not contrived: It’s a very honest car.” MARIA XIMENA ODIO BATTERY RESEARCH THERMAL ENGINEER The I-PACE design may herald a major departure for Jaguar, but it is the car’s electric powertrain that is truly setting the company’s revolution in motion. Thermal Engineer Maria Ximena Odio has been part of the Jaguar team leading the charge, working to ensure the I-PACE 36 battery modules – each containing 12 cells – work efficiently together and deliver the needed battery life. No easy task, as Ximena Odio explains. “We began by creating something called an electrothermal battery model. This is basically a prediction model that we use to develop the essential cooling strategy for the car batteries,” she explains. “With the model, we were able to see how the battery cells would generate heat and how the modules would then take this heat into the cooling system. It required a huge number of measurements to predict just how the batteries would react to a large variety of driving conditions. But it gave us what we needed.” This may sound complicated – and that’s because it is. But the temperature of the batteries in the I-PACE electric powertrain is key to the car’s range, performance and charging time, so getting everything just right was crucial. The reward, in turn, was substantial. “There have been so many factors to deal with in the development of the I-PACE powertrain, but when you go to school to become an engineer you can only dream of this type of job. To me, the I-PACE is pure engineering come to life.” And the dream is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, according to the Costa Rican-born engineer. “There’s going to be constant change from now on. With batteries, we’re just getting started.” 32 THE JAGUAR
THERE’S GOING TO BE CONSTANT CHANGE FROM NOW ON. WITH BATTERIES, WE’RE JUST GETTING STARTED MARIA XIMENA ODIO THE JAGUAR 33