Range Rover Wants to Rove With New Fully Electric Off-Road SUV
The so-called “Range Rover Electric” SUV will get the latest fast-charging tech and be able to wade over 30 inches of water.
Justin WestbrookWriterManufacturerPhotographerDec 13, 2023
Range Rover Electric testing 7
It would not be very surprising to discover that many potential luxury SUV shoppers are curious, if not simply waiting to make a move as they anticipate what Land Rover and Range Rover achieve with all-new upcoming all-electric off-road SUV models. Not too much is known yet, but we’ve now got an early peek at the design details of the first so-called Range Rover Electric SUV, with some hints at what to expect when it finally arrives in later in 2024.
So far, the recently rebranded Jaguar Land Rover brand has been fairly tight-lipped about its EV ambitions as its companies sifted through a strategy that worked best for each of them, with Jaguar likely focused on more street-oriented sedan, SUV, and lux markets in the Tesla and Lucid space, and Land Rover and Range Rover tackling SUV and off-road capability to compete with the likes of Rivian, Ford, Hummer, and now Tesla with the Cybertruck.
Range Rover has now teased that its electric SUV will feature an 800-volt system architecture in its new Modular Longitudinal Architecture platform for improved performance and DC charging capability, hopefully sealed well enough to wade through a claimed 33.4 inches of water. The likely quieter all-electric running gear will also require a bespoke active road noise cancellation configuration. Range Rover claims the EV is now undergoing its most rigorous testing regimen for production sign-off ever in climates from Sweden to Dubai and temperatures ranging from -40 to 122 Fahrenheit.
Here’s how the company’s latest release describes the traction advantages of its newly-developed EV drivetrain currently in testing: “Rather than a traditional traction control setup based solely in the ABS unit, Range Rover Electric distributes the wheel slip management task directly to each individual electric drive control unit, reducing the torque reaction time at each wheel from around 100 milliseconds, to as little as 1 millisecond.”
The new EV will be built alongside the plug-in hybrid Range Rover models in the Solihull, U.K. plant with a new underbody facility, and the battery and electric drive components will be assembled at JLR’s new Electric Propulsion Manufacturing Center in Wolverhampton, United Kingdom. A new waitlist is available to join on the Range Rover website, which seemingly just sends your contact information to a local retailer.
Justin Westbrook
Justin Westbrook eventually began writing about new cars in college after starting an obsessive action movie blog. That developed into a career covering news, reviews, motorsports, and a further obsession with car culture and the next-gen technology and design styles that are underway, transforming the automotive industry as we know it.