JLR has taken the wraps off the Range Rover Sport Electric, a £109,810 performance SUV that shares its platform and powertrain with the pricier Range Rover Electric but undercuts it on price. There are no US prices yet.
Like its larger sibling, the Sport uses two 260-kilowatt motors good for up to 550 PS (metric horsepower) and 850 Nm of torque — more than any Range Rover Sport before it — and can hit 60 mph in 4.3 seconds in Dynamic Launch Mode. JLR claims a 118.5 kWh battery delivers up to 374 miles of range on the WLTP cycle, which should translate to roughly 320 miles under the stricter US EPA test. An 800-volt architecture and split-charging let the SUV add 136 miles of range in as little as 10 minutes in ideal conditions, and go from 10 to 80 percent in 22 minutes.
JLR says the Sport has the stiffest body and lowest centre of gravity of any Range Rover Sport, plus a torque response 50 percent faster than the Range Rover Electric. All-wheel steering, electronic Active Roll Control (up to 1,400 Nm per axle) and an adaptive dynamics system that monitors 100 parameters 500 times a second are standard, as is the ability to wade through 900 mm of water and climb 45-degree inclines. An aerodynamically optimised grille and wheels contribute up to 10 extra miles of motorway range, JLR says.
The launch lands at a difficult moment for JLR, which announced this month it will cut 4,000 jobs over the next two years. The Sport Electric will compete with the Porsche Cayenne Electric (which starts about £20,000 cheaper), the BMW iX xDrive60 and the Lotus Eletre 600; the Polestar 3 is out of the running in the US, where the brand was barred from selling cars under a rule banning Chinese software in new connected vehicles. Petrol, diesel and plug-in hybrid versions of the Sport remain on sale.
