Range Rover EV has an extra offroad advantage
Range Rover is preparing for a heavily electrified future, with plans for an EV option for each model in the showroom by the end of the current decade.
An electric off-roader may sound like a strange idea - after all, you don’t find much electricity in the wilderness - but that isn’t stopping one of the world’s most famous off-road brands from building just that.
The Range Rover Electric is set to be released before the end of 2024 and has already attracted more than 18,000 expressions of interest from potential customers. While you’re unlikely to see a Range Rover crossing the Australian outback, the company is renowned for its off-road prowess and that will be no different for its first electric model, which could just turn out to be its best vehicle yet.
In fact, Ryan Miller, Range Rover’s global marketing and services director, told The Australian that he’s confident it could be even more capable on slippery surfaces than its petrol-powered models, even if he’s not expecting smooth sailing into these uncharted waters for the British brand.
“Range anxiety is going to be a big consideration, particularly for first-time purchasers,” he said. “And I think the EV-adoption rate will depend heavily on the speed of infrastructure development.”
Miller also hinted that switching to electric motors, which can be controlled with more individual precision than a single internal-combustion engine, would give the electric Range Rover an advantage on loose surfaces. For example, several car manufacturers with electric SUVs have already demonstrated so-called “tank turns” – with the car able to spin 360-degrees in place if it has four electric motors that can operate independently and therefore spin the wheels in alternating directions.
“Does EV create more barriers for off-road performance? It makes it harder but it liberates [at the same time],” he explained. “If you think about it, you go from zero to maximum torque in a split second. And if you can control that torque and get that power down to each individual wheel with split-second control, you can create something very special.
“So we’ve got some pretty inventive off-road engineers in our team, as you can imagine, and they’re hugely proud of the heritage that they’ve created. So we’re working very hard to be very inventive on that front.”
The other obvious advantage for the Range Rover Electric will be an even quieter ride, something likely to be appreciated by the majority of owners, even those who don’t head off-road.
“What do our Range Rover clients want? They want the technology,” Miller said. “They want near-silent travel. There’s no reason why an electric Range Rover actually can’t be the best Range Rover we’ve ever made.”
The company has only revealed limited information about the new electric model, but has confirmed it will be an extension of the existing flagship Range Rover model line-up. The brand planned ahead for this moment, developing the new underpinnings for the latest model to be capable of fitting combustion engines, hybrid and fully electric powertrains.
Like most Europe-based brands, Range Rover (and the wider Jaguar Land Rover group) is preparing for a heavily electrified future. The Range Rover Electric will be the first battery-powered model but by the end of the current decade it plans to have an EV option for each model in its showroom.
Not that Miller and the team are expecting a rapid changeover, despite the high levels of pre-launch interest in this first model.
“Yeah, it eventually becomes a volume product, absolutely not in the short and medium term,” Miller admitted. “But eventually, there is a tipping point in every market, we believe. With electrification, we think that’s the right propulsion solution, that’s why we’ve invested heavily in that.”
Just this week, the next electric Range Rover was spied, with prototypes of the replacement for its Velar model being tested in the northern hemisphere winter. It sits on different underpinnings to the flagship model and will likely share its key technical elements with the next-generation Land Rover Discovery and future electric Jaguar SUVs.
