Land Rover Range Rover Autobiography SWB PHEV Review: Plugged In to Perfection

What we like:

Very usable EV range

Lovely refinement and comfort remains

No compromise to everyday usability or off-road prowess

What we dislike:

$10k more gets you the 4.4 V8

The current generation Range Rover is an exceptional car. We test drove the full-fledged Range Rover LWB with the 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8, and then the Range Rover Sport with the Ingenium straight-six, and loved all of them. The hidden grief is that they were all heavy gas guzzlers no matter how gently one drove.

The Range Rover PHEV (RR PHEV) is here to relieve that pain with up to 120 km of EV driving range (WLTP), without ever needing to turn on the petrol engine. That’s significantly more than most PHEVs in the market. Now before you cry foul about adding even more weight to the already heavy Rangie, and question the efficiency of the PHEV exercise, let us step back for a moment to assess the driving experience.

During the test drive, I started the first day with about 80% charge and had well over 70 km of EV range. I spent the whole day running my errands in EV mode and literally never needed to start the ICE engine at all. I reached home in the evening and assuming I had a charger, I could have juiced up the car to get a full 100 km of range again for the next day. I think it’s reasonable to expect not to use a drop of fuel driving around Singapore, so long as you charge up every evening. Actually, you may not even need to wait till then. The RR PHEV is capable of a 0-80% charge in under an hour using a 50 kW DC charger, which makes it one of the fastest charging PHEVs around.

Furthermore, the beautiful thing about the RR PHEV is how much power you have on tap with just the 160 kW electric motor. It feels fast running on electric power alone and has a top speed of 140 km/h in EV mode, so you really have to give it the beans to summon the petrol engine from its sleep. Then you get 550 PS and 800 Nm. Of course, the transition is so smooth and seamless that it’s never a pain to do so. And when running, the straight six is one of the smoothest engine configurations around you can hope for. Compared to the mild hybrid ICE setup in the Range Rover Sport we test drove, the RR PHEV feels even smoother.

Even if you skip a day or two of charge and have 0% charge left, the RR PHEV can still function like a hybrid vehicle, switching off the engine at the lights, regenerating energy from braking and using electric power when moving off from standstill. The RR PHEV doesn’t slump to sluggishness; it drives as normally as its non-PHEV peers. Therefore, the long-term average from the trip computer (based on numerous aggressive journalist loans) is a very respectable 10 L/100km. That betters the non-PHEV versions any day.

Now with the additional 300 kg weight the RR PHEV has to lug around, you may expect some repercussions to ride and handling and you would be partially right. The car does seem to cope marginally worse over road imperfections, but frankly it is imperceptible to the untrained passenger. The large 38.2kWh battery is mounted under‑floor so that there’s no compromise to load space and at the same time, it keeps the car’s centre of gravity low, too. The MLA-Flex chassis has been designed for ICE, PHEV and BEV powertrains, so even the PHEV can accommodate a full-sized spare wheel. In fact, all-terrain capability is assured with high-strength Boron steel casing the battery - it can even support the weight of the vehicle (2,735 kg, in case you’re wondering) balanced on a single axle.

When being a little silly around sweeping corners, the car does roll a bit and place more stress on its tyres on corners, but again, this is pedantic and would you really drive the RR PHEV this hard around bends anyway? In fact, it remains quite agile thanks to its four-wheel steering, which makes it a breeze to pilot even in tight multi-storey car parks.

Most of the time, the RR PHEV makes imperious progress and offers a sense of occasion and refinement that only more expensive rivals like Bentley and Rolls-Royce can achieve. Every single person who sat in the car during the test drive felt they were in something special, and in turn, they felt special too.

An all-electric Range Rover will be unveiled this year, but I am not so sure that it will be a better car than the RR PHEV. In fact, if I were to pick one from the range, the RR PHEV would be it. It just suits Singapore driving so well, for an additional $34k over the mild-hybrid Autobiography. If you ever need to take an extended road trip, the ICE engine is always there to supplant for power. I didn’t expect the RR PHEV to change my perspective on PHEVs so drastically, but it did.

Photos by James Wong

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