Range Rover Evoque P300e

Our favourite family SUV goes green, with plug-in hybrid power for a useful electric range and a reduced appetite for petrol On sale Late 2020 Price from £43,850

THE NEW RANGE Rover Evoque P300e plug-in hybrid is as good a poster child for electri cation as it’s possible for a car to be right now. Not only does it carry our coveted ve-star rating – as well as a What Car? award – but it also happens to be in a class that’s going nowhere but up, as more families choose highriding SUVS over traditional hatchbacks.

With an o cial range of up to 41 miles between recharges, it’ll take you farther on

RIVALS

electric power than rivals such as the Volvo XC40 T5 Recharge and upcoming BMW X1 xdrive25e. If you start in the centre of London, you’ll reach Toddington services on the M1 motorway before you need to charge up again. In other words, you could safely cover the UK’S average daily commute of 18.8 miles twice before you need to plug in again. Topping up the 15kwh battery from 0-80% takes 30 minutes using a 32kw public charging point, or just shy of an hour and a half with a typical home charger. Using a three-pin plug socket will take almost seven hours.

Not that you’re limited to electric power, of course, because this Evoque has a 197bhp 1.5-litre petrol engine to call on as well as its 108bhp electric motor. Not only is the P300e the fastest option in the range in terms of acceleration from a standing start – the 0-60mph sprint takes just 6.1sec – but it also gives you the option of cruising on electric power alone at speeds of up to 84mph. An eight-speed automatic gearbox is standard.

The P300e is kinder to your bank balance than other Evoques, returning up to 201.8mpg on the o cial WLTP test cycle. That it emits just 32g/km of CO2 is good news for company car drivers, too; most versions of the P300e qualify for a bene t-in-kind rate of 6% in 2020-2021.

While the P300e is mostly the same as any other Evoque inside – no bad thing, because it’s a very pleasant place to spend time – drivers will notice a new option on the car’s lower touchscreen that allows them to select from Hybrid, EV or Save driving modes. Hybrid – the default setting – allows both engine and electric motor to work together. Save allows you to deploy your stored electric power later in the journey – for example, if your destination is in the middle of a low-emissions zone, such as central London. EV, meanwhile, uses the car’s electric power reserves alone.

Drivers can keep track of the Evoque’s state of charge using Land Rover’s Incontrol Remote smartphone app. This also allows you to prepare the car for a journey in advance; you can pre-set its interior temperature and schedule recharging to take advantage of an o -peak energy tari .

With a starting price of £43,850, the P300e will cost you substantially more than our current recommended Evoque model – the dieselengined D150 S – and more than its Volvo and BMW rivals, as well as the electric Kia e-niro. Target Price discounts should narrow the gap before long, however; buyers can currently save up to £2383 on a new Evoque through What Car?’s New Car Buying service.

Land Rover’s larger SUV, the Discovery Sport, is also now available as a plug-in hybrid. Its seating capacity drops from seven to ve if you opt for the greener power choice, but, for those who don’t need to carry a crowd, the plug-in Discovery Sport is again substantially kinder to your fuel and tax bills than other models in the range. It, too, will handle the average daily commute without sipping petrol; it’ll take you up to 38 miles on electricity alone. The Discovery Sport P300e costs from £45,370.

Those hoping for more green Land Rovers shouldn’t have long to wait, either; this plug-in hybrid setup will nd its way into the Defender luxury SUV in the not too distant future.

‘You could cover the average daily commute twice before you need to plug in again’