The Range Rover is going electric, and it looks … exactly the same.That is the pitch, and it is almost too on-the-nose. After years of delay, Jaguar Land Rover has finally wheeled out the first fully electric Range Rover, a $138,000 U.S. flagship that promises 333 miles of EPA-estimated range, a 118.5-kWh battery, and 542 horsepower with 627 lb-ft of torque. Deliveries start later this year. The silhouette, the stance, the familiar slab sides and floating roof: all still there. If you parked it next to a gasoline model, most people would not notice until they listened for an engine that never arrives.
That sameness is being sold as a virtue. Range Rover says this is a Range Rover first and an EV second: same luxury cabin, same off-road brief, same wading depth, same quiet authority in a valet line. The hardware underneath is new enough. Twin motors, an 800-volt architecture, a double-stacked pack, and a claimed 10-to-80 percent charge in about 22 minutes on a fast DC station. On paper, it is quick enough, at 4.3 seconds to 60 mph, and torquier than any Range Rover before it. On the street, it is still a two-and-a-half-ton luxury barge asking six figures to do what a lot of cheaper electric SUVs already do, only with a better badge. The timing is the joke. Luxury EV demand has cooled. Rivals already occupy the same parking space at a lower price, and buyers who can afford $138,000 have not exactly been begging for another silent SUV that looks like last year’s silent SUV. Range Rover is betting that camouflage is the product: no sci-fi grille, no spaceship lamps, no apology. Just the same object, now with a battery instead of a V8 soundtrack.
Maybe that works. The brand has always sold continuity more than novelty. A Range Rover that does not look like an EV may be exactly what its clients want. Or this is another expensive debut in a market that keeps rewarding the same formula until it doesn’t. The numbers are respectable. The design is familiar by design. The question is whether “exactly the same” is a triumph of restraint or the latest deluxe flop wearing a charger port. What do you think?
We're making the call. It will be in the soon to be rubbish heap of EV's like Taycan, Macan, Cayenne, Escalade, Wrong product. Wrong time.
Discuss...