Range Rover Sport Electric on sale from £109k

Much cheaper than Land Rover's EV flagship, yet still with 550hp - tempted?

You wait yonks for a battery-powered Range Rover, then two come along at once. Hot on the heels of its full-sized sibling, revealed at the start of September, we have the Range Rover Sport Electric version. Much about it, for better or worse (and as we discussed back in the summer) is the same or very similar. Same 550hp courtesy of its shared 260kW motors, same 4.3 seconds to 60mph, same 118.5kWh battery, same 800-volt architecture and virtually the same 374-mile WLTP range. Land Rover’s 333-mile quoted real-world ranking is no different either. But where the Range Rover Electric costs from £154,070, the Sport starts at £109,810. Go figure.

Or don’t, because the price difference - and the market positioning differences it implies - have been part and parcel of the Sport’s identity since forever, and all the more so since it started sharing hardware with the flagship model. The question is less about whether or not a Sport Electric specifically eats into Range Rover sales (historically speaking, they target different buyers), and more about the appeal of a six-figure electric SUV generally. The battery-powered Range Rover’s popularity, one suspects, is ring-fenced by its money-no-object clientele. The Sport, less so. In fact, it must immediately convince EV buyers that it is a better bet than the Porsche Cayenne Electric, which starts at £83,200, and is very much already here.

To do this, as you might expect, Land Rover has talked up the EV’s qualities as a genuine ‘performance SUV’. “Range Rover Sport is the most dynamic expression of Range Rover,” said Martin Limpert, the brand's MD. “With Range Rover Sport Electric we’re taking that spirit of visceral engagement and desire into the electric age.” How so? Well, thanks in part to the structural upsides offered by the new battery housing, the model is claimed to be 61 per stiffer than any other Sport. And while it may be heavier for the same reason, the underfoot positioning of the skateboard means its centre of gravity is 73mm lower, too.

Such boasts are hardly unusual when talking about otherwise conventional platforms made to accommodate battery cells, but Land Rover reckons it has done all it can to make the most of the Electric’s strengths. The air suspension features twin-valve dampers and active roll control, as well as all-wheel steering and Adaptive Dynamics 2 software, which is claimed to monitor 100 parameters 500 times a second to decide how best to apply up to 1,400nm of corrective force across each axle. The manufacturer might have chosen to fit the hydraulically interlinked 6D Dynamics system from the SV for even greater handling prowess, but it considered the V8-powered P540 Sport a more appropriate performance benchmark.

Even without it, Vehicle Engineering Director, Matt Becker, is adamant that the car “represents an evolution in the dynamic character of the Range Rover Sport.” The Electric may have less outright power than an SV, but its 627lb ft of peak torque is the most ever made available to a Sport - and to help distinguish it from its sibling, it ramps up 50 per cent quicker than in the Range Rover. This much was evident when we drove a prototype back in the summer, the Sport being not only quicker to turn, but also quicker off the mark - which, of course, makes it seem lighter on its feet. Indeed, Becker talks about the new model feeling “smaller, more planted and more responsive than you would imagine.” Traits it will surely need when you consider that the cheaper Cayenne S Electric is half a second quicker to 62mph.

But the Sport is not exclusively about on-road performance. Much as it did with the Range Rover Electric, Land Rover has gone to predictably great lengths to ensure that the Sport’s breadth of capability is exactly where its customers expect. You hardly need watch the car crest the 3,000ft Gioia Peak - part of the open-air Carrara marble quarries in Italy, and JLR’s latest marketing wheeze - to know that the ‘unique tuned’ Terrain Response system is unlikely to be challenged by leafy driveways or muddy car parks. Or indeed even 900mm of standing water or a 45-degree slope. The same dual motor configuration means the Sport relies on an open diff as well, but the instantaneous of the torque delivery is always the compensating factor. It felt imperious away from the asphalt at Goodwood.

Its other advantage - again, shared with the Range Rover Electric - is that missing exhaust pipes and funkier alloys aside, you'll struggle to tell it apart from a combustion-powered Sport. Which isn’t to suggest that the current model is peerlessly good-looking, but its physical presence and classical proportions make the Cayenne’s jelly-moulded look seem doubly anonymous. It is a similar story inside, where (thanks to the decision to retain the transmission tunnel, now utilised to house the battery’s control module), Land Rover has consciously opted not to change anything it didn’t really have to. So think additional infotainment readouts and the Single Pedal function hiding under the gear selector’s S mode. The message is again clear: people very much liked the Sport already. Making it the same but battery-powered is again considered the quickest way to their hearts.

Which isn’t to shortchange the work that has gone in underneath; the Electric gets all the same patent-pending innovations as the flagship model - the ThermAssist heat management system primary among them - and because it was developed alongside, benefits from all the same exhaustive testing, including shock testing the battery in -40 degrees to +90 degrees conditions. It will also charge from 10-80 per cent in the same 22 minutes (should you find a sufficiently juicy DC public charger), and can accept power from a more sedate AC connection on the other side. But the point is to convince you that none of this requires any compromise on your part. You just go on being a Range Rover Sport owner.

Whether or not this ultimately convinces more people to jump ship is naturally the million (billion?) dollar question. As it declares the order books open, Land Rover appears adamant that it has assembled all the right moving parts - though it will force no one to take the plunge. The MHEV and PHEV variants continue, most at a considerable saving versus the Electric. The latter, its battery backed by an eight-year or 100,000-mile warranty, is available in Dynamic SE, Autobiography and First Edition trims, starting at £109,810, £122,780 and £126,290, respectively. While its performance template, the 4.4-litre P540, is currently from £121,270. Food for thought? Or no-brainer? We will see.

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Luther Blissett

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