Electric Jaguar rammed off road by police after brakes fail at 90mph
A driver of an £80,000 electric Jaguar has spoken of his terror as police were forced to ram him off the road when the brakes on the luxury car failed.
Nathan Owen was trapped inside the speeding Jaguar I-Pace as it tore down the busy M62 without any working brakes after it suffered an “electrical fault”.
Police used specialist pursuit tactics to ram the out-of-control vehicle, eventually bringing it to a safe stop on Wednesday.
Terrified and trapped inside as is travelled at nearly 100mph, crisis support worker Mr Owen told MailOnline: “In the back of my mind, I was thinking I’m going to end up crashing the car, I’m going to kill myself or I’m going to kill an innocent person on the roads.”
Mr Owen added: “The car was in its own world - it just had no brakes. The worst thing about it is that it’s happened before.”
“The car literally just started speeding up. I couldn’t press the brakes. The speed was going towards about 100mph in the high 90s, going to 100. I thought this was a bit wrong.
“It came up on the dashboard saying there was a battery malfunction in my car. I kept trying to press the brakes but nothing was happening. So the next thing I thought I should do was call 999 and tell them what was happening.”
North West Motorway Police revealed what had happened on social media, writing: “Police currently have a lane 3 and 4 closure on M62 EB J11 to 12.
“This is following the use of tactics to stop an electric vehicle with an electric fault where the driver was unable to brake.
“Motorway officers from Merseyside, Cheshire and GMP brought the vehicle to a safe stop.”
The Jaguar I-Pace is set to be discontinued before the company’s relaunch in 2025, with JLR CEO Adrian Mardell admitting to Autocar the model is mainly sold in the UK to help ensure the company complies with emission targets.
In May 2023 Jaguar recalled more than 6,000 I-Pace electric SUVs in the US due to the risk of the high-voltage battery catching fire.
In an email, Jaguar told drivers they should park away from structures until recall repairs have been completed, and where possible, they should charge outdoors.
Jaguar also removed the audible vehicle alert system (AVAS), designed to warn visually impaired pedestrians from the same model as the cars are almost silent when operating at lower speeds.
The car manufacturing giants had originally planned to make the I-Pace sound like a “sci-fi spacecraft”, but in testing they found that the sound caused pedestrians to look up at the sky, instead of in the direction of the vehicle.
A Jaguar Land Rover spokeswoman urged people not to speculate on the cause of the malfunction. She told The Independent “Following the incident involving a Jaguar I-PACE on the M62 on the afternoon of 6th March, we are looking into this matter with urgency.
“A full review is underway to determine the cause of this incident, which is still yet to be established. The safety of our clients and vehicles is JLR’s highest priority.”.”
