Jaguar i-Pace Electric SUV is proving too POPULAR for JLR’s plans

The Jaguar i-Pace isn’t heading for the Frankfurt Motor Show as a production-ready model. Is that because JLR have too many orders for it already?

It’s getting on for a year since the Jaguar i-Pace was revealed as a concept take on Jaguar’s plans to deliver a convincing alternative to the Tesla Model X.

There was a little flurry of PR activity around the i-Pace to start with, but we’ve not had any substantial updates recently, with the only real news being the i-Pace’s gong for best concept,and the man responsible for the i-Pace’s conception declaring it a Tesla beater.

But despite a lack of concrete feedback from JLR, the expectation was that the production i-Pace would debut at Frankfurt next week. But it’s not.

Instead, Jaguar will concentrate on the European debut of the E-Pace and the new XF Sportbrake, leaving the ‘Electric Halo’ for other Premium car makers to pick up. Which seems a bit odd.

But, according to Automotive News, the answer is simple – Jaguar already has too many orders for the i-Pace.

The i-Pace is being built in Austria by Magna Steyr for Jaguar, and as we reported when we learnt JLR wouldn’t be building the i-Pace themselves, the capacity at Magna Steyr for the i-Pace is around 13,000 cars a year.

But it seems JLR already have 25,000 confirmed orders for the i-Pace, even though the production version hasn’t been revealed and there’s no pricing yet (although it’s expected to start from around £60k).

So JLR has a problem, and with capacity limited to 13,000 a year in Austria and all its UK plants working at capacity, it’ going to have to find a way to build more i-Paces or buyers are going to look at other options.

Still, there are worse problems to have.