All future small and mid-size Range Rover SUVs – and the new Land Rover Discovery Sport – to go all-electric
Jaguar Land Rover has announced a more radical version of its ‘Reimagine’ product plan that will see it drop combustion versions of the next-generation Range Rover Evoque, Velar and Land Rover Discovery SUVs in a bid to fast-forward its transition to an all-electric car-maker by 2025.
Confirming that it would now invest £15 billion ($A28b) over the next five years, the British car-making group said it would also rebrand itself as ‘JLR’, as well reconfigure its Halewood plant near Liverpool in the UK to produce only vehicles underpinned by its new Electric Modular Architecture (EMA).
Originally, JLR detailed plans that suggested the EMA platform would also be engineered to support electrified combustion engines, but that plan has been dropped as the “trend to electrification in certain markets increases”.
Range Rover Velar
Although the Evoque, Velar and Disco Sport were not specifically named, all three models – as well as a potential replacement for the Jaguar E-PACE and F-PACE – are expected to ride on the EMA platform.
JLR said the first “medium-size modern luxury SUV” from the “Range Rover family” to ride on the EMA platform would go into production in 2025.
Land Rover Discovery Sport
That car is hotly tipped to be the all-new replacement for the aging original Velar.
The launch of the first battery-powered Evoque, meanwhile, will follow just months later and is tipped to be on sale by 2026.
During the latest Reimagine presentation overnight, JLR also announced it will begin taking pre-orders for battery-electric versions of its new Range Rover flagship later this year (around Q3) ahead of its arrival in 2024, but it did not release any new details of the incoming zero-emission Rangie.
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Keyword: Next Range Rover Evoque and Velar will be EVs