Range Rover Evoque facelifted

Cleaner, greener Ingenium engines more significant than the mild cosmetic brush up

Land Rover has seemingly cured the one big failing of the Range Rover Evoque: middling-to-poor fuel economy. An aesthetically mild facelift for LR's best-seller has been underpinned by a switch to Jaguar Land Rover's 'Ingenium' 2.0-litre diesel engine as used by the Jaguar XE. In the front-driven version of the new Evoque, the 150hp incarnation of the engine officially drops the CO2 to 109g/km down from 133g/km in the most frugal model with today's Ford-sourced diesel.

Colours other than white are available

Bearing in mind that all makers now seem to game the New (ha) European Driving Cycle (NEDC) test to the point that these official figures are now meaningless, this entry Evoque is recorded as achieving 68mpg. A punchier 180hp version with four-wheel drive is reckoned to make 59mpg. Astonishing really when you think the kerbweight of the Evoque tops 1.7 tonnes.

Whatever we think of these fashion 4x4s, the Evoque has been an incredible seller for Land Rover - so much so that it beat the BMW X3 in sales across Europe last year. And as Volvo found when it launched its 117g/km D4 version of the ageing XC60 last year, putting out an economical version can REALLY boosts sales of these premium SUVs, especially when your emission figures are low enough to tempt the company car drivers.

Essentially Land Rover has adopted some of the underbody changes brought in with the new Discovery Sport, which shares much of the same (non-aluminium) platform. To better distinguish the two, the designers have made a few tweaks to the Evoque's look, including larger air intakes on the front.

Infotainment has been updated too

While the old diesel goes, the new Evoque, available from August, keeps the Ford-sourced 240hp turbocharged 2.0-litre petrol for the top-spec models. They also come with the excellent "Active Driveline" torque vectoring technology that'll be also seen on Ford's Focus RS towards the end of the year, JLR sharing a supplier in powertrain specialist GKN.

Of course being Land Rover you'll be able to pay extra for a host of new luxury gizmos on the new Evoque - things like massaging front seats, an electric boot hatch that opens if you wave a foot under the correct spot below the bumper, and a 3G Wi-Fi hotspot. The dash-screen now gives you access to JLR's new 'InControl' touchscreen infotainment system and there's digital radio as standard across the range.

For off-road driving there's JLR's new low-speed cruise control that sets a constant speed and shuffles power and applies braking between all four wheels to obtain the best grip.

A facelifted SUV might seem like slow news to some, but this car really is the model that allows JLR to build up Jaguar and noodle about with SVR and heritage projects. Given the huge bump the XC60 got from its economy upgrade, pushing it past the Audi Q5 in Europe, this latest Evoque looks like it'll carry on funneling cash into JLR's fun slush fund a few more years yet.