Can you save the planet and drive the archetypal luxury SUV? It’s long been a bone of contention as Range Rover has attempted to garner a greener hue.
After a long wait, the British brand has hitched its defining model to the electric bandwagon.
According to managing director Martin Limpert, the criteria were clear: to deliver an all-electric version that sacrifices nothing in terms of driving capability or ownership experience.
Limpert told The Irish Times that with this new EV, it is job done.
Only the most subtle details distinguish the electric version. There’s a slight change to the grille, different wheels, and if you get on your back you will spot changes to the underbody.
Meanwhile, owners are promised the quietest, most responsive Range Rover yet, packing more torque than any version to date. It also offers a range of up to 600km.
The floor pan includes a double-stacked 118.5kWh battery with 800-volt technology, which means DC charging from 10-80 per cent can be done in 22 minutes.
Powered by two 260kW motors, it boasts a combined output of up to 542hp and 850Nm of torque. A new traction-management system can respond in as little as 50 milliseconds on any surface you deign to grace with the car – 100 times faster, Range Rover claims, than an equivalent combustion-engined model. And it’s not afraid of getting wet either, with a wading depth of up to 900mm.
While we didn’t get a chance to drive it up the river Avon during our brief drive at the firm’s Gaydon test facility, we did get to try it out on some rough-and-tumble off-roading, including climbing a rock face.
The new car tackles slopes up to 45 degrees, all from the comfort of well-bolstered leather seats and using single-pedal driving. On the other side, the electric Range Rover descended an incline that would make a black ski run look like a nursery slope.
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Basically, you point the car where you want to go and it does the rest.
“Electric propulsion is perfectly suited to the exquisite refinement of Range Rover, elevating the sense of calm and secluded sanctuary for occupants,” says Limpert.
“We took our testing and development programmes even further than originally intended to ensure Range Rover Electric is genuinely the most accomplished Range Rover ever.”
We also got to take the Range Rover on a short track drive where, unsurprisingly, it delivered the sort of instant straight-line speed we’ve come to expect from EVs of all sizes. Still, a time of as little as 4.5 seconds from 0-100km/h – and overtaking speeds from 80-120km/h in 3.4 seconds – is notable in a behemoth like this.
At more sedate speeds, it is eerily quiet and serene, in keeping with the sense of refinement Range Rover has long made its calling card.
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Parent company Jaguar Land Rover has had a torrid year, with a cyberattack shutdown, US tariffs, and turmoil in the crucial Chinese market. So while the electric Range Rover is unlikely to be a big-volume seller, its arrival marks an welcome upturn in fortunes.
That will be particularly welcome at the company’s Solihull plant, which has been transformed for an electric future.
If saving the planet in a luxury SUV sounds like a contradiction, it’s also an expensive one. Starting at €160,620 for the SE 450PS version, you can spend as much as €325,360 if you opt for the 550PS long-wheelbase version in SV Ultra trim. For context, that’s the going price for a three-bed house in parts of Dublin.
But if that’s the market you occupy, then opting for electric will require little or no sacrifice other than to your wallet, which is likely to be pretty immune to punishment.