Super-quiet, super-refined - and still super-capable: that’s the latest from manufacturers JLR about the upcoming electric Range Rover, waiting list now open for probable 2025 delivery. To be known as Range Rover Electric, the first all-electric modelwill be designed and made in the United Kingdom - with batteries eventually to be delivered by a new gigafactory in Somerset, now being planned by parent company Tata. Production will be at the company’s existing headquarters in the Midlands.
“The quietest and most refined Range Rover ever,” is how Thomas Müller, product engineering boss, has described this key model for Land Rover and for the JLR group as a whole. Key because this model will be an important part of JLR’s mission to achieve zero emissions across its entire range by 2036. Underlying architecture of this Range Rover electric SUV was originally to be shared with a new large Jaguar before that project was stalled as uneconomic, making success for the car even more critical.
Pressure is on, but engineers aren’t flinching. Performance of the electric Range Rover will be "comparable to a flagship Range Rover V8”, says JLR, which would mean a top speed of some 150 mph, while “its capability and all-terrain technology will ensure hallmark towing and wading”, with depths of up to 33” of water traversed with the contemptuous ease that Range Rovers are famous for. Puddles will be no problem, then.
Four-wheel drive comes courtesy twin electric motors, while ultra-fast charging will be provided for by an 800 volt system, also found on competitors such as Tesla’s Cybertruck and Porsche’s Taycan. Electric Range Rover prototypes are being abused right now since “global on-road testing has started, from Sweden to Dubai”, according to JLR. We’ll have ours in electric blue, please.
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