Gas-guzzler to Eco-warrior
The first all-electric Range Rover will be on sale in three years — but it won’t be cheap
BoTH on and off the road, it’s been a long and eventful journey. But after five decades of epic adventure, the world’s first luxury 4x4 is on course to make the transition from gas-guzzler to eco-warrior.
A fully electric Range Rover will go on sale within three years, land Rover bosses announced this week, as they unveiled the fifth generation of their flagship 4x4.
It will be the first of six new green vehicles from the manufacturer.
The Range Rover’s devoted fans include the Queen and the Royal Family, as well as Premiership footballers, captains of industry and assorted celebrities.
And it is likely the royal household will be among the first to take delivery of the batterypowered Range Rover that’s truly fit for a ‘green’ Queen.
MOVING FORWARD
Along with a petrol-electric plug-in hybrid version, and for the first time the option of a family-friendly seven seats, bosses hope the ‘electrification’ of the Range Rover will help banish its ‘gas-guzzler’ reputation.
The announcement of the electric Range Rover, which will arrive in showrooms from 2024, came as the firm took the wraps off the new fifth-generation incarnation of the 4x4.
Since 1970, more than 1.25 million Range Rovers have been built — rising to 3.5 million when the wider ‘family’ of Range Rover Sport, Velar and Evoque is included.
Built at the firm’s factory in Solihull, near Birmingham, the new Range Rover has been designed in a way which allows the car to be powered with both electric motors and batteries, as well as more conventional fuels. Prices start from £94,400. nonleather and recycled fabrics are on offer, as well as clean air technology which filters out odours and viruses, including the Covid-19 and Sars viruses.
A range-topping SV Range Rover offering ‘executive class comfort’ on 23 in wheels — expected to cost in excess of £150,000 — will be available with long and short wheelbase, a chauffeur-style four-seat configuration, and a clever ‘Club Table’ that has a chiller recess for champagne bottles and two Dartington Crystal glass flutes.
The announcement was made online globally from the Royal opera House in london on Tuesday night, though I had a chance for an early look around three versions at land Rover’s design and engineering centre at gaydon in Warwickshire.
The new Range Rover’s design is described as ‘more
evolutionary than revolutionary’, but it is the acceleration towards full electric power that’s the most significant development.
50 NOT OUT
To celebraTe its halfcentury and the year of its ‘birth’, land rover last year launched a limited-run range rover Fifty model restricted to just 1,970 vehicles globally.
From just one model in 1970, the range rover has evolved into a family that now includes the Sport, launched in 2005, the ‘baby’ evoque in 2010, and the Velar in 2017.
over its lifetime, the range rover has achieved a host of technical and endurance feats and cultural firsts — including being considered a work of art when it became the first car to be displayed at the louvre in Paris, in 1971.
In 1972, a british army Trans-americas expedition team, led by Major John blashford-Snell, drove two range rovers 18,000 miles from the north of alaska to the southernmost tip of argentina.
In the Queen’s Silver Jubilee year of 1977, a range rover won the 4x4 class in the london-Sydney Marathon, a gruelling 18,750-mile event and the longest-ever speedbased car rally.
In 1982 a specially commissioned bullet-proof Popemobile range rover was built for Pope John Paul II’s visit to
the UK. launched with a royal flourish at the london Motor Show in 1999, the limited edition range rover
linley was inspired by furniture designer lord linley, the Queen’s nephew.
only ten vehicles — then the most luxurious range rovers to date — were produced, priced at £100,000 each. but it did also spark a row over royals lending their names to commercial ventures.
More recently, a range rover autobiography towed Sir richard branson’s Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo at its reveal and naming ceremony at the Mojave air and Space Port, in california, in 2016.
PAST AND PRESENT
In THe mid-1960s, two decades after the launch of land rover, the company hatched a plan (led by charles Spencer King) to combine the comfort and on-road ability of a rover saloon with the off-road ability of a land rover — creating the new range rover.
Development of the first prototype began in 1967. at launch, the range rover was the first SUV to feature a permanent four-wheel-drive system. In 1989, as the berlin Wall fell, it was the world’s first 4x4 to be fitted with abS anti-lock brakes.
by 1992 it had become the first off-roader to have electronic traction control and automatic electronic air suspension — ensuring the refined driving feel that range rover is so famous for, both on and off-road.
In 2012, the latest generation range rover became the world’s first SUV to feature an all-aluminium construction, making it lighter, stronger and more efficient.
looking ahead, new fifthgeneration launch models will be delivered next spring. order books for two plug-In hybrid (PHeVs) follow in January 2023.
Standard trim levels are: Se, HSe, autobiography, and First edition.
From next year an exclusive SV version from land rover’s Special Vehicle operations arm (which includes a four-seat chauffeur version) will be available.
Prices for the initial range rover launch models start from £94,400 for an entry-level diesel D300 short-wheelbase in base Se trim, up to £137,800 for a five-seater long-wheelbase First edition model.