The Plug-In Hybrid Range Rover Is An Opulent Go-Anywhere SUV, But Good Luck Getting One
If you’re looking for the ultimate opulent off-roader look no further than a Range Rover there may be more capable off-road vehicles out there there may be more luxurious Vehicles out there but nothing really combines those two worlds as perfectly as a Range Rover does over the past few years Range Rover
Has gone from a particular model within the Land Rover envelope to a sub brand that also includes the Range Rover Sport and of course the Range Rover Valar and record sales have come along with that transition but today we’re taking a look at the model that started it all this is
A short wheelbase Range Rover and this one has an interesting twist because this is the plug-in hybrid model giving you about 51 Mi of all electric range and pretty decent fuel economy thereafter while also delivering well over 400 horsepower and you might be wondering hang on isn’t it over 500
Horsepower the answer is yes for 2024 they’ve actually replaced this plug-in hybrid system with a new one it uses the same inline 6 engine with more powerful electric motor in there and unfortunately I wasn’t able to grab that one so instead let’s take a really quick
Look at this 2023 model and see why you might want to get one of those 2024’s uh big word of warning however all the plugin hybrids from North America have been sold out which is part of why this video is going to be a little bit shorter than normal let me
Know what you think of The Styling in this generation Range Rover they’ve really gone for a more luxurious smoother look up front where we have these really well integrated headlights here lots of very very uh flush fitment here going on so lots of attention detail and precision as far as the build
Quality obviously we still have an Adaptive air suspension this particular model has the 21in wheels and tires on them you can see 2 7550 r21s so even though these are pretty big wheels there actually is a little bit more cushion than you might expect on it now this is
The short wheel-based model if you want even more room inside you can get the long wheelbase model I do think the long wheelbase model looks a bit more elegant because the proportions have been really stretched out a bit more although this Range Rover is definitely pretty long
You put the gas in over here on the passenger side in the plug-in hybrid model and the electricity goes in on the other side over there moving to the rear again that sort of concept car style continues especially when you take a look at these tail lights when the
Headlights are off we have that really clean blacked out look with the smoked tail lamp covers but when the headlights are on they illuminate red and then the turn signals are red in North America as well although I really wish that Range Rover had brought the European Amber
Turn signals to the us back here we also have a feature that is pretty unique to the Range Rover lineup at this point we used to see more car companies giving us this sort of combination hatch and tailgate design but right now it’s basically just going to be Land Rover
This is really practical and handy because if you have stuff in your trunk like that you can use this cargo divider to keep things from Rolling forward and then you can use the tailgate to keep things from Rolling backwards it’s also powered as you’d expect in a vehicle
With a price tag of about $129,000 as we’re testing here then of course you have somewhere to sit when you have your tailgate party and don’t worry if you press this button up here everything folds back together kind of like a clamshell 20124 is going to bring a pretty significant upgrade to the
Plug-in hybrid system although the heart of it Remains the Same this is a 3 inline six turbocharged engine it was designed inhouse by Land Rover and it’s part of their new ingenium engine family if I lift up this cover you can see that the inline 6 engine is definitely
Nestled pretty deep in the engine bay and right back there at the rear we find an air to water intercooler that’s kind of an interesting twist because it helps improve responsiveness versus an air-to-air intercooler for 2024 horsepower is going to go from 434 horsepower up to 523 horsepower because
They’ve replaced the electric motor behind the engine between the engine and the transmission the general design of this plug-in hybrid system is pretty similar to what we find in Mercedes and BMW plug-in hybrids where we have the engine up front then we have a pancake electric motor then we have the
Automatic transmission so when this is driving along in EV mode power is going through the 8-speed automatic transmission and you will feel it shift but that also means that when you’re in electric mode you can employ the 2speed transfer case if you want to so if you
Want to off-road in electric only mode this is one of the few Vehicles where you can do that easily and it has a lot of range 51 Mi of electric range for 2023 and I fully expect 2024 to have basically the same electric range because the battery is remaining the
Same and speaking of battery and charging we should talk about that now because the charge door back here reveals something unusual for a plug-in hybrid we actually have a DC fast charge port this is one of the few plug-in hybrids that you can DC fast charge it
Uses the CCS standard for charge ports but obviously because this B battery is smaller than a full EV it’s not going to DC fast charge that quickly the peak charge rate is about 32 KW so this will take about an hour to DC fast charge the battery itself is located right there
Underneath the vehicle you can’t really see it too well it’s just under the passenger compartment it’s a 38.2 KW hour unit and the onboard AC charger is capable of charging it at a rate of around 7 KW now let’s take a look at the interior and see what this Range Rover
Is really all about over here on the doors we have the controls for the seats and this is B basically how it works for all four seats we have memory controls inside those little seat icon shapes right there and yes that includes the rear door because we do have powered
Rear seats in this model with three position memory for the left and the right we also can control the rear windows from that little switch right there so I can actually roll them all down or open and close the powered window shades there you can also operate
The map lights and open the shade for that big panoramic moon roof back there the back seat is really what this vehicle is all about so obviously we have very comfortable seats back here and a kind of interesting twist we have a powered 42040 folding back seat so you
Can see we can power fold that middle seat down that becomes an armrest and center console with a touchcreen for controlling various vehicle and seat functions back here some of those seat functions can be controlled over here as well so we have seat Heating and ventilation for the rear seats four Zone
Automatic climate control just as you’d expect and yes these rear seats do fold forward still they recline as you can see right like that we have a powered headrest design that powers up and down and then if you want to fold them forward there’s kind of this interesting
Song and dance going on here unfortunately the power rear seats have a pretty big impact on cargo capacity you can see that we have this bulky module behind the seats themselves this is where we find the top tether anchor some portion of the seat mechanism is actually contained within this area as
Well as is the center shoulder belt for the center seat position there the seat itself reclines within this envelope and if I go in for a closer look in this little area you can actually see the vent intake for the ventilated seat portion and then you can see the
Shoulder belt comes out of that back section right there now you might think that these seats wouldn’t fold but they do actually we have a button over here on this side and here’s the song and dance that happens if I press that button you’ll notice the seat actually starts moving backwards it collapses
Within this area then it unlatches itself and then everything power moves forward it is quite the song and dance but it’s even more impressive on the other side because if I press that button then you’ll notice that that Center section has to come all the way up that part’s reclining right
There everything’s going to latch into place and then it’s going to start going forward right like that it definitely takes some time to fold and unfold the rear seats and the rear seat mechanism because there’s so much going on there doesn’t become flat with the cargo area
In the back it really just kind of stays like that cargo ramp with increasing competition in the ultra luxury SUV space Land Rover has really been working hard to shed their reputation for being a little bit behind when it comes to gadgets and technology and it’s really
Obvious in here we have this big panoramic moon roof we have these millionway adjustable front seats with adjustable shoulder area inflation inflatable bolsters four-way power memory headrests front seat massage extending thigh cushion Etc and of course the classic separate Land Rover armrest right there separate of course
From this armrest right in the middle going over to the front doors again we have those memory seat controls there on the front doors lots of various materials going on in this cabin including the combination leather and fabric front seats which I think work really well in this interior let me know
What you think about that we’re starting to see more and more companies Embrace alternative fabrics and go back to some wo full Fabrics things like that that are maybe a little bit more bio or ethically sourced but also just feel a little bit cooler in the summer rather
Than leather which can feel a bit sticky going over here to the dashboard lots and lots of leather going on obviously lots of Stitch work on the dashboard there we have the Dual glove box setup that we’ve seen for a while in the Range Rover lineup one glove box up top and
Then another one down there below this one is a little on the small side I was not able to fit a tablet computer inside although maybe a 7 in might fit in there now helping shed the reputation for being a little bit behind on the tech front we find the latest infotainment
System from Land Rover it’s a little bit difficult to tell on camera but the screen’s actually not flat it has a gentle curve to match what’s going on on the dashboard it helps integrate it a bit better into the dash below that we have the controls for the front two
Climate control zones along with a direct access button to those seat settings so you don’t have to dig around in the menu if you don’t want to we also have lots of shiny black plastic down here so if I close this area you notice we have have a sort of piano black
Section there also over the cup holders in this center console my concern with that is that if you live out in the country like I do it’s going to get Dusty and it’s going to get fine scratches all over it and we don’t find it just here in the center console we
Also find plenty of it on the door as you can see right there in that area but going back to the center console we have a CH wireless charging mat in there USB interface the system does support wireless Android auto and wireless carplay then we have a joystick style
Shifter here park is that button right over there and start stop button this is effectively the drive mode controls I guess you could say it’s their off-road program which includes not just terrain management but also an eco mode and a sport mode for the suspension engine and
Transmission as well so we got lots of different Drive modes there most people should be fine keeping this in auto mode most of the time you do that by just pressing the button down we then have Hill descent control a button to control the EV and hybrid mode operation and a
Two-speed transfer case that’s a really handy feature in here and something that definitely differentiates this from something like a Mercedes-Benz GLS or a BMW X7 so this has a lot more off-road capability because of that again those two big cup holders there and you can pull them back and that’s where we find
The USB interface itself for the infotainment system so that’s the actual interface Port there that one’s a charge only port and then you can route the cable from one area to the other so that way your phone is not just hanging out under the cup holders then we have
Another storage area behind that in this model it is air conditioned so we can actually press that little button there and use that as a little Chiller on the driver side we get a color heads up display lots more Stitch work going on there and then instead of a rectangular
Instrument cluster they sort of beveled the edges there and then they make it actually float over the dashboard you can see it’s not right there on the dash now I know a lot of folks are probably going to be fixating on this check engine light here that does seem a
Little bit on brand for Land Rover but honestly it was because the fuel cap was actually off this vehicle when it was delivered I think that the guys that filled it up last forgot to screw it on so when I opened the fuel door it just was dangling inside that fuel cavity and
That is an evaporative emissions error right there it’s going to go away after a few ignition Cycles most likely this LCD instrument cluster has a bunch of different themes you can go for this modern theme you can also change the info panels there or you can go for a
Map focused view or a dial view where we get two dials there but it’s worth noting that the map view here is not going to have any sort of satellite imagery like you might find in a modern Audi here’s a closer look at that Stitch work it’s kind of an interesting way to
Integrate the steering column into the dash a lot of cars just have a big blank Gap there here they put leather over that and they Stitch all around it now moving out to the steering wheel itself it’s a pretty familiar Land Rover Range Rover steering wheel paddles on the back
Touch controls up front these are combination physical and touch controls so you can see they change in function based on exactly what you’re doing inside that interface there and it has haptic feedback because it is actually a clicky button in there and it knows what you’ve done by wear on the button module
You’ve actually been touching airbag cover right there in the middle I am surprised it’s not leather stitched and then over here we have the cruise control controls as well as the speed limiter button paddle shifters right there on the back now let’s talk about the reason I wanted to borrow this Range
Rover it has the new plug-in hybrid system from Land Rover and even though we are going to get a tweak with more horsepower in 2024 the basis of the system is essentially the same it’s a decently sized electric motor positioned on the other side of the 8-speed automatic transmission and then an
Inline six on the other side of that when everything is working together in this model we get over 400 horsepower in 2024 you’re going to get over 500 horsepower so clearly there’s going to be a 0 to 60 difference between the two in this model if I just come to a
Complete stop and floor it everything’s going to work together to give me 0 to 60 in 5.4 seconds and it’s going to sound as luxurious and as smooth as you’d expect from an inline 6 engine the last Range Rover that I drove had the twin turbo V8 under the hood it went 0
To 60 in 4.3 seconds and to be honest I have a suspicion that the next plug-in hybrid the 2024 is probably going to get pretty close to that as far as its 0 to 60 time goes because electric motors can deliver an incredible amount of low-end torque and that’s the big change for
2024 is even more lowend torque even more torque from a standstill now what about EV mode acceleration well remembering that this is a plug-in hybrid not a full EV obviously acceleration is going to be slower in EV mode than the upcoming Range Rover full electric vehicle we clocked 0 to 60 in
The electric mode in 8.9 seconds that may sound slow to some but this is perfectly able to keep up with traffic on the highway it’s able to merge into traffic on the highway it’s even able to climb mountain roads like this absolutely no problem staying in EV mode
And because the electric motor is relatively powerful and the battery is fairly large this doesn’t have to default to hybrid mode on my daily commute this is one of the very few plug-in hybrids that will actually do not only my daily commute from the office to home up and over a 2200t
Mountain pass without turning the engine on this can also do a daily commute round trip without charging so I could drive this from the office to home from home back to the office all 100% in electric only operation again very very few Vehicles will accomplish that task
Because of the hill climbing in between even something like a Rav 4 Prime unless you treat it very gently will finally decide it needs to turn on the gasoline engine because maybe to save the battery or because things are getting a little warm or because of whatever reason that
It decides to turn on the engine this on the other hand doesn’t do that if it’s in EV mode it’s going to stay in EV mode except of course if you press on the gas pedal further like most European plug-in hybrids if I were to floor this gasoline
Engine is going to turn on because it assumes you want all of the horsepower it’s not going to stay an electric only operation like some plug-in hybrids will some folks are offended by that I don’t mind it at all I think that’s exactly how it should be the other thing that
Surprised me about this is that 60 to0 stopping distances are not actually that much further than the last Model I tested which again was the V8 so it did have a little bit more weight up front but curb weight wise it still is actually a little bit lower than this
Model I scored 128 ft from 60 MPH back to zero that is on the long side for a luxury vehicle but remember the mission of the Range Rover this is not the overtly sporty model this is the luxurious model the comfortable riding model and then of course the plugin
Hybrid system as well that softer tune is the reason that I’m going to give handling a B minus in this model it certainly is big and heavy and it feels big and heavy out on the road don’t get me wrong it does cut a corner pretty
Nicely but there is a lot of body roll a lot of tip and dive it is certainly going to not feel as exciting as you know BMW the Mercedes Etc that you might want to cross shop this with part of that is simply the mission and the
Tuning of this you might like a more soft and more comfortable ride or you might prefer sportier handling those two things are often two ends of the teeter totter and Land Rover has certainly chosen one end here most vehicles with an Adaptive air suspension have a comfortable ride out on a rougher Road
Like the one that we’re on here but the ride quality in a Range Rover is a little bit different because Range Rover of course has off-roading in mind and that means that this has a little bit more suspension travel than you’ll find in the average competitor certainly
More than you’d get in something like a GLS or an X7 and that means that over larger imperfections say like some of these larger bumps in the road potholes Etc this does not transmit as much of those big bumps into the cabin because the suspension can simply compress more
We also have the ability to adjust the suspension height more in this vehicle so if for instance I went into the Wade mode um this is suspension height is going to go all the way up to its absolute highest setting and in that setting this vehicle is certainly going
To be more comfortable than a lot of the competition that has a high height setting because this again still has more suspension travel to it and this generation of their adaptive air suspension feels significantly more refined than the first generation air suspension that we found in the Range Rover lineup definitely more refined
Than the air suspensions we find in something like a Grand Cherokee or a Grand Cherokee L simply due to the design of this system and of course the extra cash that Land Rover is spending on it and that’s why I’m going to give ride quality an A+ whether you’re simply
Driving around town or you’re doing a longdistance road trip even in the more aggressive off-road mode like I’m in here it’s still going to soak up all of those bumps and and whoops in the road and really going to make that experience an awful lot more premium and more
Comfortable as far as cabin isolation goes this is just as isolated as you’d expect a Range Rover to be I measured 69 DB in here at 50 mph with the gasoline engine on in hybrid mode when it switched over to EV mode it was just a little bit quieter as you might expect
But it was really hard to tell the difference so I’m going to still call that 69 DB this inline 6 engine is incredibly smooth it honestly is difficult to tell when it’s on and when it’s off and that is not at all what I had expected similar designs of this
Style plug-in hybrid system whether it’s in a BMW X5 plugin hybrid or a Jeep Grand Cherokee plug-in hybrid are not as smooth as this drivetrain and they use basically the same design philosophy in fact this ZF 8speed automatic transmission is the essentially the same ZF 8speed that we find in the Jeep and
In the BMW as well but Land Rover has certainly spent I think more time designing the clutch interaction the way the hybrid mode engages and disengages here this interestingly enough is the smoothest plug-in hybrid system with this General drivetrain design I think I have ever driven significantly smoother
Than what we find for instance in the Lincoln Aviator that one comes across as really Herky jerky and that’s probably why they’ve recently decided to discontinue it if you’re on the fence between getting a plug-in hybrid Range Rover when you can or waiting for the full electric model whenever that
Finally drops I might suggest some Shoppers would be perfectly happy with this plug-in hybrid model obviously if you want to completely cut your gasoline dependency you’re going to want the full electric model if you want the fastest expression of this the smoothest expression of this that’s likely going
To be the electric model as well but this is perhaps more of a pragmatic alternative yes you could DC fast charge it if for some reason you wanted to spend almost an hour at a DC fast charger but that’s not the point of this model this is the kind of vehicle where
You just don’t have to worry about that you drive your 50 mi in electric range if you want to go on a road trip sure you’re consuming gas but it’s going to be a little bit less gas than the rest of the Range Rover lineup and that’s for
Most folks going to be very little gas on a yearly basis because this could hand handle your entire daily commute 50 weeks of the Year and that 2 weeks of the year that you go on a vacation assuming you even went on a road trip in your $150,000 Range Rover you could do
That at 20 to 23 m per gallon but the rest of your daily commute it’s just consuming no gasoline at all so far this week I’ve put 440 M on the odometer that’s a little bit above average for me but this has used so little gasoline the
Fuel gauge is practically on full still and that’s because aside from videoing the vle for you when I’ve been flooring it 0 to 60 testing it and the one drive run from the office to home to test fuel economy it’s been running in electric only operation the entire rest of the
Time and that’s thanks to the big battery pack and the powerful electric motor that we find here this really could be the ultimate luxury for some Shoppers if you’re the kind of person that does 30 to 40 miles a day as far as your commute either one way or round
Trip or if you have the ability to charge at the office you could do up to 100 miles round trip each day you might never visit the gas station except for your weekend away or maybe your vacation at the end of the year Etc this is the
Kind of vehicle where quite possibly if this was my daily driver I might go through maybe one or two tanks of gasoline a year and there is a certain luxury to never visiting the gas station and that convenience of always hopping in your vehicle and driving it full
There’s also kind of the environmental benefit of the reality that this uses a whole lot less battery than the upcoming full battery electric version will certainly a whole lot less battery than any other big battery EV if you’re taking a look at something like I don’t
Know a rivan r1s this has the kind of off-road capability that you might want in an r1s but the battery pack is you know maybe a fourth of the size so it’s using significantly less resources and it doesn’t have that worry about how long is it going to take me to charge on
That random road trip if I wanted to go to Los Angeles right now I wouldn’t even have to fill the gas tank I would just go down there and then I could fill the gas tank come back home plug back in and spend the next few weeks running on
Electricity again this is the kind of plug-in hybrid system that I think could satisfy a wide variety of Range Rover Shoppers even perhaps a few that might still be waiting for that upcoming electric model clearly if you want to go cold turkey that’s the only way to go
But I think if you’re really on the fence and you’re really worried about DC charging Etc you might want to take a look at one of these competition for the Range Rover lineup is is pretty difficult to Define because if you’re spending over $100,000 on a base Range
Rover or well over $200,000 on some of the mid and upper level trims you’re logically able to buy just about anything you could buy a Rolls-Royce you could buy Bentley you could buy a GLS mybok you could buy an BMW X7 and save some cash something along those lines
But within that envelope the Range Rover occupies a really special and specific place it has off-road capability that really approaches some of the very rugged version of the Mercedes-Benz G wagon or exceeds them depending on exactly what you’re doing and then it has the luxury that you’d expect in a
Mybach and that’s what continues to be interesting about the Range Rover lineup if you have a country estate and you want to be able to off-road to your country estate when you need to or you just like having that in your next SUV then clearly you want to take a look at
A Range Rover there are more luxurious name plates out there you could of course buy a Rolls-Royce cullin something like that but interesting twist it’s Tech on the inside is not going to be as modern as this Range Rover and I think that’s the one thing
That Range Rover has done really well is keep up with the tech keep up with the interior refinement Etc the new infotainment system and instrument cluster are light years ahead of what we used to find in Land Rover models and they’re definitely better than what we find currently I would say in the
Bentley and in the Rolls-Royce competition because those use somewhat older infotainment systems from their parent companies Rolls-Royce is of course owned by BMW and oddly enough they don’t use iDrive eight or even really iDrive 7even in the Rolls-Royce it actually is kind of a old feeling
System with kind of an old uh display in the center of the dashboard Etc then of course stay tuned because hopefully I will be able to get my hands on the 2024 model pretty soon that plug-in hybrid has been so popular it’s actually sold out for North America already for 2024
Which is probably why this one is a 2023 that they ended up sending me but that model has about 100 extra horsepower and more power in eveve mode so it’s going to stay in EV operation a little bit longer still give you very excellent EV range this is the kind of vehicle where
In Daily driving you aren’t going to be using any gasoline at all and for some people that’s going to be the ultimate luxury and then of course when you want it you’re going to get over 500 Hors power in that 2024 model your vehicle let me know what you think about that
Down there and what you think about this style of slightly shorter video I figured it was a little bit odd to do too many direct comparisons to a vehicle that so few people are actually going to be shopping a competitor for if you want a Range Rover you probably want a Range
Rover and you’re not out there going you know should I really get the extra leg room in a BMW X7 or a Mercedes-Benz GLS or do I want a third RAR or whatever if you’re after a Range Rover you’re probably just after a Range Rover
A Range Rover with a plug might sound odd, but with 50 miles of EV range it might be the biggest luxury feature on this spendy SUV. Why? Because I’d visit the gas station maybe once a year and that’s a luxury to me. On the other hand it’s been so popular that not only are all the 2023 PHEVs gone, all the 2024s are spoken for as well..
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