After ruling the luxury SUV roost for over half a century, the Range Rover is finally available in a fully electric version. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) says it's worked on this for the last decade, and filed more than 300 patents along the way to bring it to life.
Built on the aluminum MLA-Flex platform, the EV features twin permanent magnet 348-hp electric motors, which peak at 542 hp and a whopping 627 lb-ft (850 Nm) of torque. That's plenty for freeway cruising and ambitious off-roading, a 0-60 mph (97 km/h) time of 4.3 seconds, and you'll still be left with a bit more power for torque vectoring when necessary.
A compliant two-chamber air suspension will keep you comfortable when you're gliding over sand and mud in the respective drive modes for those sorts of sticky situations. The Integrated Traction Management system allows to get easily ascend 45-degree slopes by monitoring all four wheels in real time, and responding in just 50 milliseconds to control motor speed.
This works in tandem with JLR's one-pedal driving mode, so you won't even break a sweat hitting 45-degree slopes. The custom-designed 118.5-kWh battery is good for 333 miles (536 km) of range (EPA), and you can top off using NACS fast chargers for up to 125 miles (201 km) in just 20 minutes, and get from 10%-80% in 22 minutes.
The brand's mobile app will let you schedule charging to take advantage of off-peak electricity rates, purify the cabin air before you hop in, and check the car's battery capacity remotely.
Range Rover is deadly serious about making the Electric just as capable as its ICE vehicles for puttering about in the wilderness, to the point that it's tested this thing across some 900,000 miles (1,448,410 km), including freezing mountain ranges and sweltering deserts.
Impressively, this version weighs just the same as the V8-powered model, and doesn't sacrifice much beyond about one inch of ground clearance. And despite having a giant battery pack in the floorboard, it can happily wade through as much as 35 inches (889 mm) of water.
It's also virtually the same as the ICE Range Rover inside and out, save for the closed-off grille and redesigned underbody and wheels for greater aerodynamics that allow for a bit more range.
What's not the same is the price. The Electric will start at US$138,000 ($140,550 including destination charges), which is around $25,000 more than the gas-powered model, and nearly $10,000 more than the plug-in hybrid P550e. That doesn't make it a no-brainer if you're careful about how you spend your money, but I imagine Range Rover buyers don't concern themselves too much with that sort of minutiae.
JLR will build this in its Solihull manufacturing facility, which has been retooled to crank out Electrics in large numbers. It'll come in a range of standard and long wheelbase variants, and deliveries are slated to reach customers by the end of the year.
Check out the new Electric on JLR's site.
Source: Jaguar Land Rover
