The Jaguar I-Pace has won the 2018 Professional Driver Car of the Year award, which is aimed at private hire and chauffeur operators.
The 100 per cent electric I-Pace was praised as being a “game changer” by the magazine, and won the green Car of the Year category alongside the overall award.
According to the magazine, Jaguar’s first electric vehicle is already securing big contracts with private hire and chauffeur firms – largely electric chauffeur companies at the moment – but with a major fleet planned out of Heathrow airport, the model is already building popularity in the industry.
Mark Bursa, editor of Professional Driver magazine, said: ““The I-Pace generated unprecedented levels of enthusiasm at or two-day judging event in September, and we knew we had our likely winner even before we’d added up the scores.
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“We’ve never had a car in such demand for test drives, and we’ve never had quite such a torrent of positive feedback as we had for our 2018 Professional Driver Car of the Year. One judge commented that this could be the game changer the industry has been waiting for.”
The I-Pace only reached showrooms earlier in the year, but has already scooped a number of awards including Auto Express Car of the Year, too.
The model has been earmarked as the first true rival for the Tesla Model S and Model X thanks to its high quality interior, impressive real-world range of 250-300 miles and excellent practicality. Prices start from £58,995.
Other winners at the awards included the Audi A8L 50 quattro being awarded chauffeur car of the year, the BMW 630d Gran Turismo the executive car of the year and the Toyota Prius Excel scooping the coveted private hire car of the year trophy.
