Electric Jaguar rammed by police after brakes fail at 90mph

An electric car owner has told of his fears that his vehicle would “kill an innocent person” after he lost the ability to apply the brakes on his EV.

Nathan Owen said his £80,000 2019 Jaguar I-Pace “went rogue” on the M62 after overtaking another vehicle on the motorway.

He said his EV malfunctioned and forced him to lose control of the vehicle for around 35 minutes, prompting a huge police operation to take place.

Officers from three police forces were deployed to close a stretch of the motorway and safely bring the vehicle to a stop after the police formed a protective convoy.

Speaking after the incident, the 31-year-old recounted the issue and spoke of his fears when trying to get the car to stop.

He said: “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.

“The car was in its own world - it just had no brakes. The worst thing about it is that it's happened before.”

He explained that the car continued to speed up despite pressing on the brakes. He said the car was accelerating to between 90mph and 100mph when he was on the phone with the 999 operator.

Owen claimed that the police spent 35 minutes surrounding the vehicle with eight police cars escorting him down the busy motorway, suggesting he move the vehicle into the hard shoulder to avoid contact with other vehicles.

He continued, saying: “The police officers said they never come across this before and coming down the hard shoulder and the police being behind me, it was like something out a film.

“It was horrible, I was in the fast lane, police car right in front of me, cars alongside me, normal passengers were just staring at me.

“I felt like a criminal like in a big police chase, that's how it felt. It felt like Grand Theft Auto.”

Nathan Owen, who is a crisis support worker, said the battery range on his vehicle had started to drop, allowing the car to gently slow down and go to zero.

He said a similar event had taken place in December, although he was able to get the car into neutral by pressing buttons inside the car.

Posting on Facebook, North West Motorway Police confirmed that it had closed lanes three and four on the M62 between Junction 11 for Birchwood and Junction 12 for Eccles.

It added that this was following the use of tactics to stop the electric vehicle, which had a fault which meant the driver was unable to apply the brakes.

A spokesperson for Jaguar Land Rover said: “Following the incident involving a Jaguar I-Pace on the M62 on the afternoon of March 6, 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.”