2026 Range Rover Electric | PH Review

The best 4x4 by far goes electric. Hold on tight

By Nic Cackett / Wednesday, 21 October 2026 / Loading comments

It is remarkable what long-running popularity does for a car. Whether we’re talking about the BMW 3 Series or Porsche 911 or Mercedes G-Class or Range Rover, we have a very fixed idea of what to expect from the world’s most storied, successful models. And whatever these values might be, they tend to bestow a clarity of purpose on the manufacturer: from a customer perspective, it needs only return to the drawing board to tangibly improve upon what has gone before. Innovation is crucial, of course. But it need not fundamentally change the recipe. Indeed, it must not.

Land Rover took this lesson to heart long ago. The Range Rover moves in slow life cycles, and while its quality has ebbed and flowed with the wider fortunes of the brand, there are precious few globally available British cars that can claim a similar degree of loyalty from their owners - even those who confess to being dissatisfied with some element of the experience. True, the Range Rover has often fallen short of perfect. Yet it has never failed, in recent memory, to be anything less than plush and refined and regally good at getting anywhere, no matter the weather or the conditions underfoot. These elements are considered non-negotiable and unchanging no matter the technology deployed to achieve them.

Which is how we’ve arrived at a battery-powered version that looks almost exactly the same as the combustion model, and would like nothing better than for you to mistake it for one. The Range Rover is intended to be Electric in the same way that a Cartier watch might use a quartz movement: it performs the same basic function as something intricate and mechanical - possibly to a higher standard - yet it is more an enabler than a source of specific affection. Which is fine, because Land Rover has avoided the powertrain knot Jaguar has tied itself in by not forcing us to choose. The flagship model, as globally minded as a shipping container, will continue burning fossil fuels in numerous formats for a good while yet.

For some, this traditional solution will continue to be superior. But for many others - possibly for the majority of Range Rover owners if Gaydon has done its use case sums right - the Electric version is pitched as a better fit. Not just because it is quieter or cheaper to run or kinder to the environment (though all these things, too), but because it is also fundamentally better to drive. Jaguar has made similar claims for the Type 01, but its fait accompli-style argument that people favour styling and interior ambience and brand recognition over powertrains is undone by the divisiveness of offering them no choice at all. Ironically, it is in the Range Rover, otherwise a bastion of old-school sensibilities, that the sentiment might ring true: do we ultimately care how the flagship is powered if it looks and sounds and wades and washes over you in the quintessential way we’re accustomed to? Perhaps, tantalisingly, we do not.

If you’re inclined to consider that question at length, you’re halfway into Land Rover’s butterfly net. Little matter then that the Electric is heavily delayed nor that, technologically speaking, you can already buy battery-powered SUVs with significantly more range and on-road performance. Land Rover feels it has done enough, with the double-stacked 118.5kWh battery and 800v architecture installed in the existing MLA Flex platform (return here for full technical breakdown), to adequately mimic, or else exceed, the dynamic performance of the most accomplished combustion-driven Range Rover - i.e. the one with a 4.4-litre V8. Everything else, according to the business case, is personal choice and tax implications.

Where to start then? In the Scottish Highlands, of course. The backdrop has it all. Impossible, mind-boggling scale, yet with the kind of pastel-coloured prettiness that any good model railway aspires to. Much of Land Rover’s chosen route makes up the NC500, which means it includes some of the nation’s best and emptiest roads. The perfect place to launch an EV that might reasonably be expected to help owners reduce congestion and emission charges in large cities? Again, you could hardly miss the gauntlet being laid down: if the Range Rover Electric works here, all 2,885kg of it, among so many Defenders, on gnarly single-track roads (and away from them) where could it fail to work?

For most buyers - those not already on Land Rover’s list of interest-signallers - much will hinge on first impressions. Here, perhaps, is the most notable wrinkle in the play-it-safe game plan: by not combining the Electric’s introduction with a wider refresh, the EV inherits some of the L460’s shortcomings. This, plainly, is not the newest or most innovative cabin in the luxury car world. Virtually all its physical controls have gone, yet the infotainment display - never a bastion of intuitiveness to begin with - is starting to look like a Matsui TV in a quantum dot world. Standing proud of the dash no longer does it many favours, and some newfangled features (like the soundscapes engineered to wring some sonic life from the twin EDUs) have found themselves banished to distant sub-menus.

But the elevated driving position and the view out, assuming you’re partial to playing Picard, are perfection, as is the volume of space which your head and elbows find themselves in. Different strokes, obviously, but for yours truly, squared-off like an outhouse door, no car rivals the palatial Range Rover for ergonomic pleasure-giving. Thanks to its leave-no-trace packaging, this is all fundamentally unchanged in the Electric (like me, its owners are said to favour the enormous transmission tunnel that now houses the battery’s control module), as are all the controls. Everything you touch, certainly in the snazzy First Edition format driven, lives up its ‘Light Cloud’ trim description. The enormous front seats are sensational. Its driver's mindset, kingly.

Then, suddenly, you’re into D and underway - and immediately into the reality distortion field that is the Electric’s accelerator pedal. To say that Land Rover modelled the throttle response on the V8 feels too reductive (even if they did), because it doesn’t fully capture the pleasure of pushing on it. Most EVs feel spring-loaded or unable to disguise the wall of torque available to you if your foot strays a gnat’s wing closer to the carpet - but the Range Rover, thanks in part to its endless metering of the EDU’s delivery, doesn’t do any of that. The pedal progression is remarkable for the way it makes your input seem easy to modulate without implying that more speed is preferable. You get exactly what you ask for, in a way that hints at the car’s heftiness without being beholden to it.

In other words, it sets off like a Range Rover. And without thinking about it, you drive it in a way that respects its size and weight, not like a three-tonne go-kart. Land Rover spoke at length in the run-up about firmly rejecting anything that might result in neck strain; this attitude, and it’s pay-off, are among the Electric’s stand-out achievements. I’ve never driven an EV so sedately or settled so happily into a B-road speed that we would all recognise as plenty quick enough. Factor in the usual advantages - the complete absence of delay caused by dithering components, the calm - and you get not only a greater sense of control or superior refinement, but also the rare pleasure of interacting with 627lb ft of EDU-supplied torque on what feels like your terms.

Which would all be for naught if the Range Rover around it rode like a trolley jack on its 22-inch diamond-turned wheels. But it doesn’t. Here too, Land Rover’s talk of meaningful improvement plays out mostly as advertised. The substantial framework needed to house the battery has delivered a torsionally stiffer model, one that benefits from the twin-valve dampers that were previously the preserve of the SV version. These were chosen primarily for the greater bandwidth they offer in terms of springs rates - useful, when there’s more pitch and roll angle to deal with - but, alongside changes made to the rear bushing, they also help to soak up some of the oscillation that occurred in the air-sprung chassis after striking an obstacle, meaning the Electric feels that bit more adept at isolating its occupants when wafting around town.

Beyond it, the Electric prudently sticks to the established playbook. It remains a big-riding, easy-steering, Clootie dumpling of an SUV, totally unafraid of its dynamic idiosyncrasies. For great empty stretches of the NC500, its status as a full-fledged EV could almost be dismissed - you sit atop it much as you would the V8; half ensorcelled by the fluency of its slow-rate primary ride, half gobsmacked by the Highlands unfurling all around you. Only by pushing on do you really start to gauge the subtle gains made in accuracy; partly a result of the lower centre of gravity and trick dampers, but also because the Electric’s rear axle is able to work the four-wheel steering a little harder, making it seem that bit keener to turn. In Dynamic mode, it steps up these efforts, but never to the extent that it self-sabotages the Range Rover’s relaxed handling identity.

Unsurprisingly, this means you’ll encounter the law of physics much earlier than you would in say, a Cayenne - along with the involuntary head nodding that comes with it - but Land Rover could hardly be less interested in chasing Porsche as a metric. Like the V8, the Electric will extend itself beyond its seven-tenths comfort zone if you wish, though it remains primarily interested in achieving the kind of instinctive flow state that makes corner-taking seem contended, not sweaty-palmed. (Which accounts for the point where the otherwise reassuringly communicative steering starts getting a bit fuzzy about how much grip might be left at the front.) It is notable, too, how well chosen 550hp generally feels: easily sufficient for abrupt overtaking, but not so abundant that you need to be electronically reigned in.

Indeed, the extent to which the Electric doesn’t seem to be at the behest of its many, many microchips is never less than heartening. Sure, you can access Singe-pedal mode via the drive selector, where it’ll apply a lively amount of foot-off regen to proceedings - and come to a complete, velvety stop if you like - but this probably deserves an additional go in a city for a full appraisal; beyond Ullapool, it felt about as necessary as an Oyster card. Better to let momentum do its thing, or to appreciate first-hand just how supple the Electric’s brake pedal remains, even under duress. Even off-road, where the car is executing all manner of lightning-fast computations to move torque where it is required, there is scant impression of EV-style apathy. You feel dialled in.

Probably it helps that so much of the usual button-pushing is discretionary. The car features the full terrain response lineup (including custom modes you can assemble yourself) accessible via the same centre console dial as Dynamic, Comfort and Eco - though if ever there were a Range Rover that befitted the adaptive Auto mode, it’s the Electric. After all, there is no low-ratio mode to engage, and while the subtle manipulation of throttle and traction control is noticeable when vacillating between grass, gravel, snow and mud ruts, the car seems remorseless even when left to its own devices. By default, it gets slightly less ground clearance than the combustion version, yet it will still wade in up to 900mm of water, courtesy of its fully sealed underparts. Granted, entering a loch never seemed eerier.

Most buyers, of course, will fixate less on the Electric’s houseboat potential and more on its real-world battery range. As promised, this exceeded (in predictive terms at least) 300 miles on a full charge, and while the recorded average consumption did dip as low as 1.4mi/kWh, not everyone will spend the day driving the NC500. For the record, via a DC charger, the car accepts up to 350kW - find one of those and you’ll need to mill about for 20-odd minutes to see the battery charge from 10 to 80 per cent. To its credit, Land Rover has developed an app which apparently corrals most public suppliers into a single user account, though probably it will have a hard job convincing diesel Range Rover owners that the time saved makes the Electric more convenient when crossing a continent.

If that’s primarily what you buy a six-figure, super-plush SUV to do, we wouldn’t recommend the battery-powered version on spec. Especially when you consider the £154,070 starting price (an oil-burning SE is from £107k), not to mention the 100-odd quid its battery will cost to fill at a motorway services in the UK. Similarly, if for you a Range Rover is indivisible from the sonorous hum of a V8 - the model that also supplies a pricing yardstick - you can get a P540 from £147k, and you should. If no one buys it, Land Rover will think it redundant in the UK, and that’s the last thing it deserves. There’s a lot to be said for being marginally lighter, cheaper and easier to live with when refuelling.

But for most people - i.e. most people with the means to buy and run a Range Rover, and therefore a convenient place to charge it - the Electric makes a compelling case for itself. Of the many things we hold dear about Land Rover’s flagship, it takes several key ingredients beyond the reach of even the V8. It rides better. It is quieter. Where it counts, it is quicker. It is at least as good off-road. Would we choose to plough into the great unknown in one? God, no. Would we gladly drive it everywhere else within 300 miles of the front door? Yes. Rarely has a full day in the company of a single car passed by so pleasantly or more swiftly. So much so that the question of its comparative excellence within the Range Rover lineup might be less interesting than its appeal as a luxury EV generally. Was there ever a segment in greater need of a genuinely desirable figurehead? Now, finally, it has one.

SPECIFICATION | 2026 Range Rover Electric

Engine: Twin permanent magnet synchronous electric motors
Transmission: Single-speed, all-wheel drive
Power (hp): 550hp
Torque (lb ft): 627lb ft
0-62mph: 4.5 secs
Top speed: 124mph
Weight: 2,885kg (DIN)
Battery: 800V, 118.5kWh (useable) capacity
Range: 372 miles WLTP
Max DC charging: 350kW; 10-80% charge in 22mins
Price: £154,070 (starting)