Range Rover Electric
Electric model to challenge Rolls-royce and Bentley when it arrives in 2021
Electric model to challenge Rolls and Bentley
LAND Rover’s massive product overhaul continues, and includes launching a fullyelectric Range Rover and an all-new crossover model that will take the marque even further upmarket and challenge the likes of Bentley and Rolls-royce. The fifth-generation Range Rover, due in 2021, will be the most radical and technically advanced there has been in the model’s 50-year history. It will be based on Land Rover’s new Modular Longitudinal Architecture (MLA) that can accommodate mild-hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fully electric powertrains.
JLR has not yet revealed the pricing, but with a V8 Defender expected to cost over £100,000 it’s clear that new Range Rover will be eye-wateringly expensive. Land Rover bosses are moving the Range Rover even further upmarket, due to increased competition from the likes of the Bentley Bentayga and Rolls-royce Cullinan.
The look of the new Range Rover will play a leading role in that, as previewed by our exclusive images. Engineers have been testing prototypes for a year. The development mules
are a combination of new running gear and existing Range Rover bodyshells, but that doesn’t give much away in terms of the SUV’S new look.
The challenge Land Rover’s design director Gerry Mcgovern is facing is what to do with the electric Range Rover, which will launch after the standard hybrid and plugin models, around 2022. Mcgovern said that his design team is taking an ‘evolutionary’ approach with the next model, but the flexibility of an electric powertrain means there are various options for how an electric Range Rover could look.
“There are two basic approaches,” Mcgovern told us. “There’s one that says if it’s an all-electric vehicle, it gives you the ability to free up your proportions. So you could have a more cab-forward approach. And then the question is, is that right for Land Rover?
“Or do you just forget about what the proportion system is, and design the car round its relevance to the consumer and
“If Bentley and RollsRoyce can do an SUV, why can’t Land Rover or Range Rover do a luxury car?”
optimising it in terms of what it’s capable of doing in terms of its on-road/off-road abilities, in terms of its functionality, its storage, its versatility and all those things?”
New Range Rover will be built at JLR’S Solihull factory, which received a £500 million investment boost last year. Fully-electric, hybrid and diesel models can be produced on the site following the cash injection.
The mechanical make-up of the electric Range Rover is still unknown, but the MLA platform allows for two electric motors to be fitted, one on each axle, for four-wheel drive. The size of the new model will also enable Land Rover to fit a battery as large as 100kwh, if desired, comfortably giving the SUV a range in excess of 300 miles.
Mcgovern added: “The Range Rover, whether it’s electric or not, is a car that’s loved the world over and it’s highly differentiated from anything. Thinking about the nextgeneration model, would you change it just so you could say that, because it’s electric, we don’t really need a bonnet any more, so let’s pull the cab forward and end up looking like a bus or a van? You have to be really careful how you deal with that, and if you look at the Range Rover Sport and Evoque, they’ve all evolved – they’re evolutionary, they’re not deliberately, dramatically going away from what they were before. They become more modern, they become more technically capable. We’ve embraced technology to enable the design to be more modern.”
Another all-new model due in 2021 is the Range Rover Crossover. Like its bigger brother it will be based on the MLA platform and will be offered with full-electric, plug-in hybrid and mild-hybrid powertrains. It is believed it will be built at JLR’S Castle Bromwich facility.
As you can see from our exclusive image (above), it will be the lowest and sleekest model Land Rover has ever produced. Expect to see design influences from the likes of the Range Rover Velar, with slender LED headlights, a swept-back roofline and a darkened bonnet.
Controversially, the Range Rover Crossover will mark a first for Land Rover, being a car that puts design and on-road comfort and luxury ahead of off-road ability. Speaking about the idea of such a vehicle, Mcgovern told us: “For me, what we’ve actually shown is the ability of the brand to stretch and be different. We always have been quite pioneering. Let me just put it this way: if people like Bentley and Rolls-royce can do an SUV, why can’t Land Rover or Range Rover do a luxury car?”
Land Rover’s wide-ranging electrification plans won’t end here. Also in the pipeline is a fleet of new plug-in hybrid models that will start with the latest Evoque. It will use a new 1.5-litre three-cylinder Ingenium engine paired with a small electric motor. The same hybrid powertrain will also be engineered for the Discovery Sport, due to arrive shortly after the Evoque in the middle of next year.
Following those models will be a plug-in hybrid version of the all-new Defender. It’s expected to make use of the same powertrain found in today’s Range Rover PHEV, combining a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine with an electric motor for a battery-only range of around 30 miles.