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Used test: BMW iX3 vs Jaguar I-Pace costs
These electric SUVs, when bought at two years old, come with incredible savings of around £15,000 each. But which should you buy? We have the answer...
Buying and owning
Costs, equipment, reliability, safety and security
Due to the Jaguar I-Pace having been in production longer, there are more used examples available and for lower prices – if you should wish to save even more money. However, for a two-year-old car, the I-Pace comes in at around £45,000, while the equivalent BMW iX3 costs around £47,000. Keep in mind, that's also taking into account the respective trims of our test cars.
Due to their high insurance groups, our duo is likely to prove pricy to insure. The iX3 sits in group 45 and the i-Pace in 49 – that's out of 50. As a result, you can expect the former car to attract a fee of around £1099; the latter rises to around £1178.
When it comes to servicing, for a two-service plan of the iX3, we were quoted £540. An equivalent plan of the I-Pace with Jaguar should cost you slightly less; we were quoted £513.
Despite its higher price when new, the I-Pace isn’t as well equipped as the iX3; it misses out on leather seats, adaptive cruise control, metallic paint and an electric tailgate. You'll have to rely on the original owner ticking some pricy option boxes to get those features. Fortunately, you still get basic cruise control, climate control and plenty of other niceties to discourage you from scouring the classifieds for kitted-out examples.
Both cars have automatic emergency braking and lane-keeping assistance. The iX3 adds blindspot monitoring; this came as part of a £1350 package on the I-Pace S, along with adaptive cruise control. The I-Pace carries a five-star Euro NCAP safety rating; it provides good but not outstanding protection from injury. The iX3 is yet to be tested, though the BMW X3 on which its based carries a five-star rating.
With either SUV, you should get a lead that you can stick in a conventional three-pin socket at home, plus a Type 2 cable for home wallboxes and certain public chargers. We’d keep the former option for emergencies only; even on a 7kW charger, a 0-100% charge of the iX3’s battery will take 11hr 30min, versus 12hr 45min for the I-Pace’s bigger battery.
Both cars are compatible with CCS public rapid chargers as standard; the I-Pace can accept a maximum rate of 100kW and the iX3 150kW. In simple terms, that means the I-Pace takes around 44 minutes to get from 10-80% at its maximum charge rate, while the iX3 can take as little as 27 minutes.
Unfortunately, the I-Pace has a fairly poor reputation in terms of reliability. In our most recent What Car? Reliability Survey, it came 13th out of 14 cars in the electric car class. The iX3 is yet to appear in one of our reliability surveys. The X3 (in petrol form) ranked fourth out of 32 cars in the large SUV class, though, so that can be considered a confidence-inspiring indication towards iX3 dependability.
We can also look at BMW's performance as a brand. It came 16th out of 32 manufacturers featured – a reasonably good result. Again, Jaguar falls behind, placing 26th.
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