Used electric SUVs: Jaguar I-Pace vs Mercedes EQC costs

Buying and owning

Costs, equipment, reliability, safety

There’s not a big difference in price between these two bought used – the Mercedes EQC is a few thousand pounds dearer than the Jaguar I-Pace. The EQC is expected to hold its value better, though, so you're likely to get that back when you come to sell. It's just a shame the servicing costs are expected to be higher than with the I-Pace.

The I-Pace will use less electricity, but that represents a relatively small saving of around £300 over three years and 36,000 miles. Each car will take about 12-13 hours to go from empty to fully charged using a regular 7.2kW home charging point.

Both can both charge at higher rates when you’re out and about – the I-Pace at up to 100kW and the EQC at 110kW, topping up from nearly empty to 80% in 40-50 minutes. Most public CCS chargers (the type of rapid charging plug both cars use) deliver 50kW, though, pushing the 80% charging time up to around 90 minutes.

You get luxuries galore in either of the two rivals, including leather seats (heated in the front), ambient lighting, an electric tailgate and keyless entry. On top of that, the I-Pace has a heated steering wheel, heated rear seats, a heated windscreen and adaptive cruise control, while the EQC adds a head-up display, privacy glass and the opening sunroof we mentioned earlier.

There’s plenty of safety kit, too, with automatic emergency braking (AEB), traffic-sign recognition, lane-keeping assistance and blind-spot monitoring all coming as standard. They both earned a full five-star Euro NCAP safety rating, although the EQC had better scores for adult, child and pedestrian protection.

Neither manufacturer shone in our latest What Car? Reliability Survey. Jaguar did slightly better, coming 21st out of 31 brands while Mercedes was 26th. 

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