After a wait that stretched patience to breaking point, the first fully electric Range Rover has arrived — and JLR has priced it exactly where you’d expect a Range Rover to sit: near the top of the food chain. First teased back in December 2023 and originally due in 2024, the EV was held back by extended development testing. Now the order books are open.
The hardware lives up to the badge. Dual 260-kilowatt motors serve up what JLR calls “V8 levels of power” — up to 542 horsepower and 850 newton-meters of torque, which the company reckons is 20 percent more than other motors of the same size. Feeding them is a double-stacked 118.5-kWh battery running 800-volt split-charging tech. That translates to a 10 to 80 percent recharge in 22 minutes, or 137 miles of range in ten. Maximum WLTP range is a claimed 372 miles, with a real-world figure quoted at up to 333 miles.
Despite the vehicle’s considerable heft, JLR pegs the 0 to 60 mph sprint at 4.3 seconds.
The catch, inevitably, is the sticker. In the UK, the entry-level Autobiography starts at £154,070, climbing to £225,240 for the SV Black long-wheelbase. The range-topping “Ultra” trims are listed as “price on application” — corporate shorthand for if you have to ask. US buyers, though, get a break: a lower SE-spec Range Rover Electric starts at US$138,000, plus US$2,550 for delivery and destination.
Why the caution around pricing tiers? The luxury EV market has been unkind lately. Sales of the electric Mercedes G-Wagen — arguably this car’s closest rival — have been dismal, with Porsche and Audi feeling similar pain. JLR’s answer is a “Range Rover first, electric second” philosophy, and much of the engineering effort has gone into making sure the electric powertrain doesn’t dull the off-road credentials.
On that front, the numbers are genuinely impressive:
- Traction management adjusts motor speed within 50 milliseconds, handling wheel slip up to 100 times faster than an equivalent combustion system
- Single-pedal driving works on climbs up to 45 degrees
- 900-millimeter wading depth for the nervous water-crosser
All told, JLR has filed more than 300 patent applications for this one vehicle — the most in its history.
Inside, the cabin is predictably plush, though it bucks the industry’s swing back to physical buttons, leaning on a large central touchscreen and steering-wheel controls.
The upside of all those delays is a genuinely brutal testing regime. Live batteries were subjected to vibration and shock testing between –40°C and +90°C, physical prototypes covered the equivalent of 38 laps of the planet, and more than 250,000 hours of virtual testing were logged. That confidence shows up in the warranty: eight years or 100,000 miles.
Next up is the all-electric Range Rover GT grand tourer, built on JLR’s Electrified Modular Architecture, currently finishing its final testing phase.
