The first fully-electric Range Rover has been a long time coming. Five years after first announcing its EV ambitions, the luxury SUV brand’s entry into electrification is carrying the weight of expectation. Now it’s here, complete with insistence from Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) that it’s more responsive, with better acceleration and more torque than any of the four previous generations since the car was introduced back in 1970.

In fact, the shift to electric pays some serious dividends when it comes to Range Rover’s luxury credentials. The cabin noise is quieter by 7 dB than the 2022 ICE V8 counterpart this car was benchmarked against. It’s also got V8-beating acceleration, 10% less body roll and a 60% quicker active damping system to intercept any infuriating road bumps. On top of that there's the traction management system I'll touch on later that responds 100 times faster than its combustion‑engine equivalent in the (unlikely) event the average Range Rover customer decides to take it off-road.

Speaking of Range Rover customers, this isn’t a vehicle to democratise EV adoption when pricing starts at £154k ($206k) for the standard wheelbase Autobiography trim. Even less so when it rises north of £225k ($301k) for the long wheelbase SV Black edition. But according to Rachel Hogg, Global Product Manager for Range Rover Electric, a lot of interested people are coming to the car for the first time.

“We opened a global waiting list a couple of years ago and to date, 70% of the people on the waiting list are new to the Range Rover brand,” she told me following a day behind the wheel of the new car.

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