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The new Range Rover Sport swaps V8 thunder for high-voltage muscle
The Range Rover Sport has been the bad boy of the luxury SUV world for good two decades. A rebellious, leather-lined battering ram equally good at doing burnouts outside Harrods as it was at scrambling up a muddy Scottish hillside. For three generations, and more than one million sales, its defining party piece was the supercharged V8 soundtrack that announced your arrival three postcodes in advance. It was loud, antisocial, and intoxicating.
But now, Range Rover is asking us to embrace a different kind of personality. With a starting price of €128,760, the new Range Rover Sport Electric strips out the petrol tanks and wants to prove that instant torque can deliver just as much personality as an old-school V8 exhaust note.
I'll admit, the numbers make a good opening argument. A pair of 260kW electric motors - one per axle - deliver an all-wheel-drive clout of 550PS (542 proper brake horsepower). But the bigger number is the monumental 850 Nm of torque from a dead stop. That is 100 Nm more twist than the flagship 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 SV model can manage.
Engage Dynamic Launch Mode, and this silent monolith lunges from zero to 60mph in 4.3 seconds (or zero to 100 km/h in 4.5 seconds). Sure, the petrol SV still pips it by seven-tenths of a second - mostly because the giant battery adds a hefty 285 kg weight penalty. But catch this electric bruiser rolling between 80 km/h to 121 km/h, and the torque delivery promises to be brutal. You see an overtaking gap, flex your right toe, and the car simply teleports past slower traffic. The V8 would still be downshifting two cogs and clearing its throat.
That powertrain comes with multiple personalities. Put the drive selector into Dynamic, and all 542 horses go wild; slip into Comfort, and the system calms to a velvety 493bhp; click over to Eco, and output drops to 276bhp to nurse your electrons to the next charger.
Apparently, the silence of a battery-powered Rangie posed an existential crisis for Gaydon's engineers. How do you replace the roar of an eight-cylinder engine without sounding like a cheap speaker job? The bigger Range Rover Electric has gentle, soothing notes originally composed on a grand piano, but the Sport's acoustic designers went for mechanical menace. They layered a low-frequency synthesized bassline that "mimics the guttural whine" of an old-school Roots-type supercharger spooling under heavy load. It should give the cabin an industrial pulse rather than sterile silence.
www.arenaev.com
media.jlr.com
The Range Rover Sport has been the bad boy of the luxury SUV world for good two decades. A rebellious, leather-lined battering ram equally good at doing burnouts outside Harrods as it was at scrambling up a muddy Scottish hillside. For three generations, and more than one million sales, its defining party piece was the supercharged V8 soundtrack that announced your arrival three postcodes in advance. It was loud, antisocial, and intoxicating.
But now, Range Rover is asking us to embrace a different kind of personality. With a starting price of €128,760, the new Range Rover Sport Electric strips out the petrol tanks and wants to prove that instant torque can deliver just as much personality as an old-school V8 exhaust note.
I'll admit, the numbers make a good opening argument. A pair of 260kW electric motors - one per axle - deliver an all-wheel-drive clout of 550PS (542 proper brake horsepower). But the bigger number is the monumental 850 Nm of torque from a dead stop. That is 100 Nm more twist than the flagship 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 SV model can manage.
Engage Dynamic Launch Mode, and this silent monolith lunges from zero to 60mph in 4.3 seconds (or zero to 100 km/h in 4.5 seconds). Sure, the petrol SV still pips it by seven-tenths of a second - mostly because the giant battery adds a hefty 285 kg weight penalty. But catch this electric bruiser rolling between 80 km/h to 121 km/h, and the torque delivery promises to be brutal. You see an overtaking gap, flex your right toe, and the car simply teleports past slower traffic. The V8 would still be downshifting two cogs and clearing its throat.
That powertrain comes with multiple personalities. Put the drive selector into Dynamic, and all 542 horses go wild; slip into Comfort, and the system calms to a velvety 493bhp; click over to Eco, and output drops to 276bhp to nurse your electrons to the next charger.
Apparently, the silence of a battery-powered Rangie posed an existential crisis for Gaydon's engineers. How do you replace the roar of an eight-cylinder engine without sounding like a cheap speaker job? The bigger Range Rover Electric has gentle, soothing notes originally composed on a grand piano, but the Sport's acoustic designers went for mechanical menace. They layered a low-frequency synthesized bassline that "mimics the guttural whine" of an old-school Roots-type supercharger spooling under heavy load. It should give the cabin an industrial pulse rather than sterile silence.
The new Range Rover Sport swaps V8 thunder for high-voltage muscle
The new Range Rover Sport Electric brings {{850 Nm}} of instant torque, a 61 per cent stiffer chassis, and a real-world {{333 miles}} of range.
www.arenaev.com
Clone of RANGE ROVER SPORT ELECTRIC: TUNED FOR VISCERAL DYNAMISM | Media Landing Newsroom
More dynamic, more responsive and available to order with fully electric propulsion for the first time, Range Rover Sport Electric begins a new chapter of sporting luxury for the performance SUV.
media.jlr.com