[EV i fi]

A nice man with a lorry turned up this evening, delivering my NHS Fleet Solution iPace S lease car.

No handover or paperwork (Covid precautions) but I had test driven one and read-up beforehand so was almost glad to be left to it.

Took the car for a spin to Rhossili for sunset; fantastically planted on the sinuous roads, even on the stodgy 18" wheels.







I have set-up the Remote app and it seems to be working.

Niggles so far (4hrs of ownership):

Infotainment has crashed once already. It restarted OK and stable since. Not as laggy as I had feared.

Neither key would lock the car for a while. Pressing "lock" merely caused a "bip" and flash but no locking and door handles remained deployed. I resorted to using the emergency key.
I then noticed in the app that it said the Froot was open, so I returned to the car, reshut the froot/frunk and the keys worked fine. This problem recurred once more but this time because the boot wasn't shut properly (manual only) so it seems a combination of user-error/finicky closure is the issue.

Podpoint charger doesn't charge (red light replaces the blue one after initial whirring noises from the unit.) I turned it off/on then rang podpoint as fault recurred.
They did a remote upgrade to solve a socket issue that the unit reported to them. This seemed to allow charging (green light on unit, car said charging) but at a very slow rate (app said 2% per hour).
After ten minutes the charger's light went red and charging stopped. Podpoint lines are now closed...

I have resorted to the Granny-cable, which seems to be working OK.

In summary: the car is a delight to drive, some minor niggles (resolved) but no 7kW charging at present (I bet the very long cable run from house to outbuildings is the issue, which I flagged to Podpoint prior to installation.)

 

[Stevedoz]

Congrats. That is one stunning looking car. Hopefully the niggles will get sorted quickly...

 

[Bivvy]

Fantastic car. Mine's coming to the end of it's initial lease and there's no question I'll be extending the lease rather than replacing it.

Myenergi zappi works perfectly with the i-Pace!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

 

[Chickster]

At least yours arrived on a lorry. My NHS Fleet Solutions lease e-Niro arrived 3 weeks ago. It had arrived in UK 6 weeks before and had been left outside as was very dusty. The driver drove it 79 miles to me touching everything inside which was not very Covid savvy. Only had 20% charge. NFS told me he would know the car and go through features with me. He knew nothing so took photos and handed me both fobs with bare hands and walked off. So first thing I did instead of enjoying my car was to wipe down whatever I could in case he touched it! Was not happy and told NFS. Not a word from them.

 

[Spec555]

I used to think it only looked good with the largest wheels, but I think this looks really classy.

 

[Minstadave]

First post for me.

Looking at one of these on NHS lease, the range over the base Etron seems very useful. The grey looks great, only blue left currently.

The base spec is by far the best value and has the least pension implications, how are the standard seats? I understand they're not heated. Any other big ommisions from the spec?

Seen some videos showing very laggy nav screens, it's a little better now is it?

How did they go about arranging the charger installation?

 

[Bivvy]

I don't bother with the built in navigation - never got it to work properly, so I just plug in my phone and use Google maps over Android Auto. That works really well using the whole of the central screen to show the map (although you don't get anything on the driver's display which is a shame)

I'd still recommend the myenergi zappi for home charging!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

 

[quakered]

No heated Seats in the S or indeed the SE. Be warned that the standard seats in the S are plastic or as Tesla call them, “vegan leather”! You will also will need to open the tailgate by hand. I have found the Sat Nav fine and great to use. It also warns you of speed cameras. The only shortcoming I found was that depite the maps covering a range of countries including Afghanistan, it would not calculate a route from London to Kabul.

why does renting a car impact your pension?

Sent from my Elliott 803 using Algol

 

[Minstadave]

No heated Seats in the S or indeed the SE. Be warned that the standard seats in the S are plastic or as Tesla call them, “vegan leather”! You will also will need to open the tailgate by hand. I have found the Sat Nav fine and great to use. It also warns you of speed cameras. The only shortcoming I found was that depite the maps covering a range of countries including Afghanistan, it would not calculate a route from London to Kabul.

why does renting a car impact your pension?

Sent from my Elliott 803 using Algol

How bad is this plastic leatherette? Is it awful?

Pension is affected as the NHS lease is salary sacrifice, so it reduces your pension contribution as part of that.

 

[quakered]

I have to confess I have not sat in or driven an I Pace with plastic seats. The last car I had with this material was my first company car in 1977 and this was a Morris Marina! Steered clear for these seats for 43 years and have no plans to change this policy in my dottage! The Marina did not have air conditioning and driving around France on Summer hols was a hot and sticky experience. Perhaps the air con in the I Pace will make it less uncomfortable. Good luck

 

[Dr Dave]

I too had a Morris Marina the plastic seats were fitted to the basic model and the fabric seats fitted to the HL top of the range model. How times have changed nowadays it seems to be the other way around with plastic seats in the high spec cars. Personally I dislike plastic seats.

 

[JWilde]

Can't believe a car of that price does not have heated seats as standard, especially it being an EV.

 

[Bodgerx]

How bad is this plastic leatherette? Is it awful?

Pension is affected as the NHS lease is salary sacrifice, so it reduces your pension contribution as part of that.

They should let you adjust your contribution to compensate. My Local Government scheme offered me the option of doing that.

As to the reason why it affects it - they basically recalculate the contribution on the gross salary minus the sacrificed amount, if you pension scheme is worked on a percentage of gross, then your pension contrib is decreased and whatever final benefits you get will be reduced.

 

[EV i fi]

First post for me.

Looking at one of these on NHS lease, the range over the base Etron seems very useful. The grey looks great, only blue left currently.

The base spec is by far the best value and has the least pension implications, how are the standard seats? I understand they're not heated. Any other big ommisions from the spec?

Seen some videos showing very laggy nav screens, it's a little better now is it?

How did they go about arranging the charger installation?

I find the cheap seats very good: done 7hrs in a day without issue. I often get a left sided thoraco-lumbar pain in car seats but that has been less of a problem with these. Of course it's a very personal issue.

For reference, my iPace replaces a Merc ML350 which had multi-adjustable seats, yet less comfy for me.

The lack of heated seats is a shame, though obviously this hasn't been relevant during summer (I got the car at end of July).

The "Vegan leather" (plastic) is nothing like leather. It isn't something I've been conscious of until I read some of these posts; it's not sticky/glossy like old car seats. The finish is matte, v slightly velvety.

The lack of a powered boot might be a surprise, though I'm not so precious about these things.

The 18" wheels are a good thing, I reckon. Others prefer the aesthetic bonus of the 20" or 22" but I value the range, ride and robustness of the 18"s.

My main concern about my lease is the mileage limit. I estimated my requirements based on the last 2 years in the Merc, approx 10000mi per year (we used our other car for long trips). However, I've done nearly 2000miles in the first 3 weeks with the iPace! Granted it's been an unrepresentative month for me but I am going to have to ration its use (I can't see the lease company allowing me to increase yearly amount and the penalties for excess mileage are steep).

Charger installation was by Podpoint. I did not have a good experience and nor have three friends/colleagues in the area. We suspect it might be an issue of subcontractors working for Podpoint (same pattern of incompetence/fraud?) and shoddy work. The actual Podpoint electrician who finally fixed my installation (4th visit) was pleasant and competent. He wasn't impressed with the preceding work.

Infotainment crashed once, nil since. I wouldn't have picked-up on lagginess if I hadn't read about it beforehand. The Satnav made some poor choices in Devon and has annoying foibles until certain default settings are disabled, like interminably (10mins!) searching for chargers at any destination you set- why?! This latter problem can be avoided by turning off "chargers on route". The provided Ubigi SIM has very little data allowance and once spent (no time at all!), causes some of these glitches. I replaced it with a "3" data SIM (24Gb, 24months, £35.) A SIM is not required for normal communication with the car (app/watch). Use Zapmap/ABRP for planning long trips with DC charge stops, adding them to car Satnav if you want. Don't use the car sat Nav to choose.

Apple CarPlay works well, though requires a cabled connection, allowing use of Google maps etc.

Third party apps (Android and iOS) offer some additional functionality over the attractive but slow Jag Remote app. Siri integration has been incorporated by enthusiast owners, if you like that sort of thing...

The most annoying thing about the software is the palaver of timed-charging (eg. to make use of Octopus Go or Agile tariffs etc). This is achievable, as detailed in the "tips" sticky of the iPace forum (not this one). This aspect of the car software and the Jag phone app are poor. Ludicrous that in this day and age they can get something so wrong! It is doable, and not that hard once you know the work around, but it is a work around!

As for colour- I had no choice as I got an extra cheap deal of the cheap deal (for various reasons). My first choice would have been Caesium Blue, which looks great in the flesh.

So far it's the best car I've had, not least because it's my first EV, though being a JLR product I wonder about reliability.

 

[burnt_crisps2]

So far it's the best car I've had, not least because it's my first EV, though being a JLR product I wonder about reliability.

Good amount of info and sounds like only minor compromises. Ride comfort on 18” alloys makes more sense than these ever bigger alloys with hardly any sidewall on tyres to absorb bumps etc. Looking forward to our i-pace arriving soon.