The Land Rover Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque plug-in hybrids have been revealed with an electric only range of 66km and top-speed of 135km/h in electric power alone.
Jaguar Land Rover has been on the fore front of electrification of cars in the global markets as they rightly proved with the I-Pace. The British carmaker has now introduced plug-in hybrids of the Range Rover Evoque and the Land Rover Discovery Sport. Both the SUVs now get an electric only range of 66km and CO2 emissions are as low as 32g/km.
Both the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery Sport are built on the Land Rover’s Premium Transverse architecture and was designed to support electrification right from the onset. It however does not compromise of the off-road capability of the SUVs. Badged as the P300e, the new plug-in hybrid variants join the existing 48V mild-hybrid variants of the SUV.
The electric motor is mounted on the rear axle and 15kW lithium-ion battery that powers the electric motor is mounted under the seats. Both the Range Rover Evoque and the Land Rover Discovery Sport are powered by a 1.5L three-cylinder Ingenium petrol engine that produces 197bhp. The electric motor mounted on the rear-axle produces a further 107bhp. Combining power from both units, the Evoque can sprint from 0-100 kph in just 6.4 seconds while the Discovery Sport can do the same in 6-6 seconds. Both cars can also reach a top-speed of 135km/h with electric power alone.
At speeds above 135km/h (84mph), the electric motor is decoupled to reduce drag and therefore optimise efficiency, and then seamlessly re-engages when the speed falls below this. There are even more astonishing numbers. The Discovery Sport uses only 1.6L of fuel per 100 km. That’s really incredible. Also, there are three driving modes on both cars – Hybrid, EV and Save.
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Land Rover will provide you with a Mode 2 Home Charger with both the PHEVs that will fully charge your vehicle in about 6 hours and 42 minutes from a normal 3-pin socket. For faster charging, there’s a Mode 3 charging cable that enables you to charge the vehicle from 0-80% in about 1 hour 24 minutes from a 7kW AC domestic wall box or AC public charge points. The quickest charge times are achieved at 32KW DC, where 0-80 per cent takes just 30 minutes.
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Land Rover already sells both the Range Rover Evoque and the Discovery Sport in India in either petrol or diesel guise. You can expect the plug-in hybrid variants to make it to India sometime next year. Also, JLR will be bringing the i-Pace to India very soon and so there’s no reason the plug-in hybrids shouldn’t make it here.
