Jaguar's new all-electric I-Pace may be one of the brand's most significant breakthroughs. This is not just because the handsomely muscular all-wheel-drive crossover can travel 240 miles on a single charge to its 90 kWh battery. Or because it will cost a competitive $69,500 before federal and state incentives. Or that it can accelerate from 0-60 in 4.5 seconds — about as quickly as Jaguar's V8 F-Type sports car. It is not even because it may be the first vehicle to feature a small "froot" — "front boot" — which is a hideous British English term for the area known by the equally unappealing American neologism "frunk."

The I-Pace ranks high in the Jag insurrective pantheon because it is the first truly competitive all-electric vehicle from a major luxury manufacturer to hit the entirety of the American market since Teslajump-started (ugh!) the contemporary, fancy, battery-powered vehicle campaign back in 2008. Sure, Mercedes, Porsche, Audi, BMW, and others have promised these vehicles, but as far as we know, they don't exist, and we haven't driven them.

The best news about the Big Electric Cat is that it's actually enjoyable on the road. Some of this is because of its intrinsic design benefits. The heavy battery pack, housed in the floor, contributes to a low center of gravity as well as ideal 50/50 front/rear mass balance. Both of these aid not only in the vehicle's road-holding capabilities, but in its style of holding the road.

Jaguar has always been adept at splitting the suspension difference between German plank and American couch, and the I-Pace follows this general trend, providing a ride that is connected without feeling overly harsh, even on the optional 22-inch wheels and Pirelli P-Zero tires. (Note to self: Reserve the Instagram handle Donk-E.) But the I-Pace does something interesting. Due to its high seating position, and the low placement of its drivetrain components, it provides the sensation that the mechanical action of forward momentum is within the driver's direct and immediate control, but taking place elsewhere. There is no delay, or vagueness — the inputs are precise and it goes where you want and expect. But it induces the odd feeling that you are riding atop a maglev hovercraft. It's futuristic, uncanny, and fun.

This slightly eldritch quality is enhanced by the vehicle's Active Sound Design, an ersatz soundtrack resembling the vague and distant thrum of an entire summer camp playing with Hot Wheels cars, that emanates from the I-Pace's stereo. It's not exactly present under ordinary circumstances, though it's not exactly not present. But it truly kicks in under hard acceleration, and continues its portamento for as long as you keep the throttle nailed, which can be a long time in a car with only one gear. (You can turn it off, but it takes about a dozen actions on the upper touchscreen of the I-Pace's dual-LCD "flight deck.") This is intriguingly disconcerting on the track *— yes we drove the I-Pace on the track — though this may not be the most unnerving thing about hustling a very quick, 5,000-pound SUV around a technically sophisticated European race circuit. Imagine a full-grown rhinoceros that had been trained, since birth, to wakeboard. It defies logic, and it does not seem to display joy in its circumstance, but it performs admirably for its category.

This raises the question of what category the I-Pace fits into. Because of its short front and rear overhangs, a design advantage born of the lack of engine and transmission, it hosts a large cabin on compact dimensions. It can climb very steep hills, and ford very shallow streams (again, yes, we did that) so it's surprisingly — don't say "shockingly" — capable, not normal for most crossovers. And it can be set to creep off the line when you release the brake pedal, like in a normal petroleum-powered car, so that's also weird. This last system is known by the moniker "Creep Mode," though this term more aptly applies to the trucklet's integration with Amazon's omniscient Alexa. As an engineer giddily told us, Alexa can "learn" your behavior, and remind you to do things it detects you doing habitually, like stopping for an unhealthy snack or calling your side piece on your way home from work. This meddling interference in our personal life would detract from our time in the I-Pace's cabin, but, again, it can be turned off.

With its stitched leather seats and dashboard, flat and knurled aluminum accents, wood trim, and full glass roof and lengthy (if narrow) greenhouse, the I-Pace interior feels at once premium and accessible. It doesn't reach Mercedes or even Porsche levels of detail and quality, but it also doesn't attempt to suggest that the cost-cutting parsimoniousness of cheap materials is a virtue, like Tesla. And there are surprising little storage bins throughout that offer delight, and storage, including one under the center console. What would you put under there? Whatever it is, don't tell Alexa, that blabbermouth.

Most of all, the I-Pace proves, by being an existing vehicle from a major manufacturer, that our fancy electric future has actually arrived. Obviously, adoption will not occur instantaneously. When the elevator was invented, people gasped in horror until personal audience or experience demonstrated that riding in the levitating capsule did not require signing a blood oath to Satan. Disruption is difficult. But, for a change, Jaguar is leading our voyage. And if that requires vroomy ersatz sound effects, we're willing to accept the bargain.

Jaguar's production of its first electric car means it also has to deal with a problem everybody else has been trying to solve: noise, or rather, the lack thereof. People can hear an engine at low speeds when they're walking along a sidewalk. The same can't be said for silent-operating electric cars.

We wrote about Chevrolet's latest solution to the noise problem a few weeks back, and now Jaguar is sharing what it came up with for the I-Pace. The noise it didn't use is almost more interesting than the one it did, though. Jag says its first iteration was meant to be spacecraft/UFO inspired, but apparently it was so convincing that people tended to look up at the sky instead of at the road. Engineers switched it to what seems like a pretty general hum sound for production. Take a listen yourself in the video above — you'll hear the noise at the 40-second mark, and a few other spots after that.

The sound is emitted from a speaker behind the grille at speeds up to about 12 mph. It'll change in pitch and volume to correspond to the increasing or decreasing speed of the vehicle — it even changes tone when you shift into reverse to signal a change in direction. Jaguar says the noise is no longer needed at speeds above 12 mph because tire and wind noise become sufficient enough at that speed. Chevy turns the noise off on the Volt at about 20 mph, however, showing that manufacturers haven't really come to a consensus on what should be happening. A U.S. law that hasn't gone into effect yet will ask manufacturers to keep the noise at up to 18.6 mph, though.

We happen to be partial to the jaguar growl heard right at the end of the video as a warning sound. That's how you make an entrance with a Jaguar.

These kinds of systems are necessary to warn those who might be blind or visually impaired, but distracted walkers are a huge demographic of people needing a warning too. Everybody walks around with their head buried in a phone nowadays, making silent vehicles a hazard of our own habits. Jaguar says it specifically engineered the noise so that it doesn't intrude upon the cabin, so only pedestrians are bothered by the hum when slowly plodding through cities.

The 2019 Jaguar I-Pace is officially rated to travel as far as 234 miles on a single charge of its battery pack. That's down slightly from the 240 miles initially promised when the slinky electric crossover was first unveiled here in the States. And, while it's roughly equal to the base version of the Tesla Model X, that's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison.

Quoting maximum electric range without considering the capacity of a car's battery pack is the same as quoting the maximum driving range of a gasoline-fueled vehicle without considering how many gallons of gas the tank holds. The I-Pace's battery pack is rated at 90kWh. The Model X'ssmallest pack is 75kWh. So the Tesla can go about the same total distance as the Jaguar using significantly less energy.

It's not just Tesla that boasts greater efficiency figures than the Jaguar. Chevy manages to eke 238 miles out of the Bolt EV's 60kWh battery pack, and Hyundai gets 258 miles from the Kona Electric's 64kWh pack.

These vehicles certainly don't all play in the same market segments, and there are a lot of variables to consider. For instance, the Jaguar's 4.5-second 0-60 rating is quicker than the Model X's 4.9-second rating, and its advertised power output of 394 horsepower and 512 pound-feet of torque is higher than Tesla's for the 75D (though Tesla's actual power numbers aren't really advertised in traditional hp and lb-ft figures). But even if cars like the Model X, Chevy Bolt, and Hyundai Kona EV aren't directly comparable across the board, their range and battery capacity figures do help us understand the relative efficiency of each specific vehicle.

The efficiency of electric vehicles rated by the EPA is expressed as a MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) figure. The 2019 Jaguar I-Pace's figures of 80 city, 72 highway, and 76 combined MPGe don't compare favorably with the Tesla Model X's 91 MPGe city, 95 MPGe highway and 93 MPGe combined ratings.

It'll be interesting to see how much EV buyers care about the Jaguar's comparatively poor MPGe ratings, but they will definitely have an impact in the real world. In practical terms, what all of this means is that the Jaguar I-Pace is going to use more electricity per mile than the Tesla Model X. And that means it's going to cost more to drive the same distance in the Jag when compared to the Tesla, or just about any other modern long-range EV that's currently on the market.