2024 Land Rover EVs - three Range Rovers, Disco Sport
Range Rover first in EV push. Electric SUV flagship, due 2024, will be followed by Velar, Evoque and Disco Sport EVs.
The electric reinvention of Land Rover continues apace, too, and order books for the battery-electric Range Rover will open later this year ahead of the car going on sale by the end of 2024.
It will be the first electric Land Rover from JLR (the new official name for Jaguar Land Rover) and will be built at the Solihull production facility in the Midlands.
Like its donor car, the Range Rover EV will be based on the MLA platform, which supports both hybridised ICE and fully electric powertrains.
JLR vehicle programmes director Nick Collins said it will “deliver true Range Rover values”, including “off-road ability, usability and refinement” in an “uncompromised” approach. He added: “It will be a benchmark for refined luxury and a testament for what this brand will create.” The MLA platform will spawn more EVs in the future as part of JLR’s pledge to have an electric model under each of its newly established four brands (Range Rover, Discovery, Defender and Jaguar) by 2026, to have an electric model in each of its model ranges by 2030 and for every car it sells to be electric by 2036.
Meanwhile, the electric follow-ups to Land Rover’s smaller models – due from 2025 – will use a purposebuilt, electric-only platform and will be built at the firm’s heavily overhauled Halewood factory in Merseyside. The next-generation Range Rover Evoque, Range Rover Velar and Land Rover Discovery Sport models will be based on the new EMA platform for mid-sized electric SUVs, which was earlier planned to accommodate hybrid powertrains but will now be used exclusively for battery-electric cars.
New JLR CEO Adrian Mardell said this was in response to the way the market had shifted so dramatically towards electric and that it made sense for the brand’s future mid-sized SUV models to do the same.
Mardell confirmed that “three vehicles, maybe four” will be built on the EMA platform. The first model to come from Halewood will be “from the Range Rover family”, according to a JLR statement, and DrivesToday understands that model is set to be not the Evoque but the Velar, which will switch to the EMA and the Halewood plant for its second generation.
The identity of the fourth model is not yet known, but it opens up the tantalising possibility of a smaller electric-powered Defender, as well as an additional model in the Discovery range. The new models will use batteries sourced in the longer term from a new European Tata gigafactory, but until then they will come from an external supply contract JLR already has in place.
DrivesToday reported last year that JLR had taken the first steps to convert Halewood to build electric vehicles, securing the factory’s future as the company begins rolling out low-and zero-emission vehicles.
The extended shutdown period to convert the plant will happen in 2024, a source earlier told DrivesToday, ensuring Halewood’s future is secure well into the medium term. The factory was opened in 1963 by Ford, which retains part of the site for building gearboxes and will invest £380 million repurposing it as an electric drivetrain factory by 2024.
Next-gen Discovery Sport and Evoque will be electric JLR Halewood plant will be converted in 2024 to build EVs New Range Rover EV will deliver “true Range Rover values”
Velar is tipped to be the first EV to use the EMA platform