It’s green but is it a real Landy?
ADVENTURE: EVEN A DINOSAUR CAN FEEL CONFIDENT IN THE DISCOVERY SPORT PHEV
‘Functionality is integrating more with interior design.’
There were two occasions during a recent trip to the Eastern Cape when I chickened out of putting the Land Rover Discovery Sport PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) through its paces: once when confronting soft sand and the other when encountering a deep-ish fast-flowing stream.
The first was at Boknes when my significant other, Rose-mariè, and I took a side road down to the beach. It was a gorgeous day and taking the Landy out on the gleaming sand would have made a glorious picture.
However, we were alone and I wasn’t confident (or stupid) enough to take a brand new R1.8 million vehicle across 80m of godknows-how-soft-and-deep muck.
In case you go accusing me of lacking cojones or not knowing how to tackle testing 4x4 conditions, let me inform you that I spent years driving an old boxshaped Landcruiser around a farm on the edge of the Namib Desert.
I’ve also done a heck of a lot of quite radical off-road driving and, had I been behind the wheel of a Series 2 Defender or my old Jeep Grand Cherokee, I would not have hesitated.
No; call me old-fashioned if you will – I’d be the last to argue – but I just don’t feel comfortable engaging off-road modes via a touchscreen. It was hard enough getting to accept using a dial on the dash but I’m far happier tugging and shoving levers down by my feet to engage 4x4 settings and… if necessary… getting out to lock the wheels.
Silly, isn’t it.
But how much dumber would I have looked, “beached” to the bash-plate without back-up and no way of getting out?
The other occasion was potentially more serious. We were travelling the dirt road between Southwell and Kenton-on-Sea, and descended to the low bridge fording the Kariega River.
There’d been heavy rains upstream and the causeway was submerged with the river flowing strongly over it.
I knew the water wasn’t particularly deep but all I could imagine was it getting into the vehicle’s electronics and shorting the thing to a standstill mid-stream.
This despite it having a claimed wading depth of 600mm.
I felt this was a legitimate concern because the Discovery Sport was operating in “pure electric” mode, something it does for the first 60-something kilometres after recharging, until the battery is either depleted or partially recharges through regenerative braking.
Instead, we turned round and went back. It was a pity because, those two moments aside, I really enjoyed driving the Land Rover Discovery Sport.
Road-holding was superb in the wet clay of the road locals call “the poor man’s game drive” and there were a few seconds a couple of days earlier when the vehicle went airborne in the dark near Storm’s River after a honey badger came scuttling out of the bush and I hit it square on – front and back – at 130km/h.
The 2.75 ton car stabilised immediately (much quicker than my heart did) but I confess I didn’t return to the scene of the collision. I had no desire to exchange views with an enraged ratel without at least six beers under my belt.
Still, my two moments of cowardice left me with the question: it might be green but is it a real Land Rover?
Most definitely, insists Jaguar-Land Rover’s local product and pricing manager Janico Dannhauser.
“Land Rover is renowned for its off-road capabilities and every vehicle we design and build takes this heritage seriously,” he says.
“The touch-screen is nothing more than a high-tech means of transferring information to the wheels.
“This used to be a lot more mechanical but we have moved on from the manual sorter-shifts and lockers you’re familiar with to dials, buttons and now a screen.”
In addition, says Dannhauser, “functionality is integrating more with vehicle interior design.
“I can appreciate, however, that it takes some getting used to…”
As I said, I know I’m something of a dinosaur.
His response to the possibility of the Land Rover coming to a bedraggled halt in the middle of a mildly raging river, even when in full electric mode, was fascinating.
“You can safely go off-road in electric mode until you encounter water,” he says.
“There is downward-pointing sonar in the wing mirror cameras, which picks up deviations in the distance between them and the ground. The moment the vehicle starts ‘losing height’ while the wheels are still turning, the on-board computer assumes it is entering water.
“The PHEV automatically switches to the internal combustion engine which creates back-pressure in the exhaust and prevents water entering the engine.”