Land Rover launches first plug-in hybrid Range Rover

Jaguar Land Rover, the Britain-based premium automaker of India’s Tata Motors, announced earlier this year plans to add electric powertrains to all new cars by 2020.

As part of this plan, Land Rover launches today its first plug-in electric vehicle: the Range Rover Sport PHEV.

Here are the main specs of the new plug-in hybrid powertrain:

• Total power / torque output: 404PS (297kW) / 640Nm
• Combined NEDC fuel economy: 101mpg
• Combined NEDC CO2 emissions: 64g/km
• Electric-only range: 31 miles (51km)
• Rapid charging time: 2 hours 45 minutes

For a PHEV’s all-electric range, 31 miles is not bad since it’s about the average daily commute, but we are talking about NEDC-rated range here and therefore, we wouldn’t be surprised if the practical range is a little lower than what is advertised here.

Here’s the PHEV powertrain that Land Rover developed for the new vehicle:

To be clear, what Land Rover calls ‘rapid charging’ is not ‘DC fast charging’, but actually just a 32 amp wall box connector with the vehicle’s 7 kW on-board charger.

It’s equipped with a 13.1 kWh high-voltage lithium-ion battery pack, which is why it can be fully charged in less than 3 hours without fast-charging.

Land Rover says that drivers can select from two driving modes to best suit their needs:

1. Parallel Hybrid mode (the default driving mode) – combines petrol and electric drive. The driver can optimise battery charge or fuel economy by utilising one of two charge management functions:

> SAVE function – prevents the battery charge dropping below a pre-selected level.

> Predictive Energy Optimisation (PEO) function – entering a destination in the navigation system enables the feature, which utilises in built GPS altitude data for the selected route, to intelligently combine the electric motor and petrol engine to maximise fuel economy.

2. EV (Electric Vehicle) mode – enables the vehicle to run solely on the electric motor using the energy stored in the battery, the ideal solution for quiet, zero emission journeys.

Here are a few pictures of the interior and display:

Here are a few pictures of the exterior:

Land Rover is making the vehicle available for order now at dealers with a starting price of £61,315 ($81,400 USD).

Electrek’s Take

It’s a small first step in the right direction to introduce Land Rover customers to all-electric driving.

But when it comes to Jaguar Land Rover, we are more excited about the imminent launch of the I-Pace, Jaguar’s upcoming first all-electric vehicle.

If the vehicle is a success, and so far the concept has been well-received and the company has been accumulating reservations, it should likely encourage the British automaker to leverage the all-electric powertrain to other vehicles in its lineup.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.