The next-generation Jaguar F-Type could be electric

Jaguar design chief Ian Callum told the UK’s Autocar that the British luxury performance brand is strongly considering having the next iteration of the F-Type sports car powered by batteries. No decision has been made yet, but from Callum’s remarks, it appears that Coventry is leaning towards electrons instead of gasoline.

Callum said, “We’re asking ourselves if it should be a final hurrah for the old-school sports car that we know and love, or to switch now to make our first all-electric sports car. It’s a very difficult decision. What I will say is that the electric decision is looking more interesting with time.”

With maximum torque at stall providing rapid standing-start launches, the performance of electric cars isn’t an issue for Callum, and the designer believes that battery advances will also eventually mute concerns about range, but finding space for those batteries is a concern. Callum said, “The main challenge remaining is the inherent raising up of a car required by the packaging of the batteries. But I see that as an interesting challenge, not an insurmountable one.”

Currently, Jaguar’s only all-electric vehicle is the I-Pace crossover, which has 234 miles of range.

The F-Type launched in 2013 but the current platform won’t be changed for at least three years. Callum said that work on the next generation of Jaguar’s pure sports car will have to begin soon and that despite the current popularity of crossovers and SUVs, Jaguar will always make sedans… and sports cars.

“I can’t see a day when Jaguar won’t make saloons or – perhaps – hatchbacks, either of which I regard as core to the DNA,” Callum told Autocar. As for the relatively low-selling F-Type, “We will always do sports cars,” he said. “End of story.”