I drove the 550hp electric Range Rover Sport – here’s what surprised me

Some car companies have totally embraced electrification – others have been a bit slower. Land Rover is in the latter camp. While there are plug-in hybrid versions of almost all of its vehicles, the firm is still the biggest seller of diesel engines in the country. There’s no wonder, when cars like the Defender, Discovery and Range Rover are so perfectly suited to diesel – and seemingly unsuited to electric power.

But electrification is happening, so Land Rover has had to take the leap – and it’s done so by fitting electric power to its two flagship products, the Range Rover and the Range Rover Sport. I’ve been sampling the latter in the surroundings of Goodwood Motor Circuit.

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The Range Rover Sport is arguably Land Rover’s biggest success, and the best all-round luxury SUV it makes. One of the best in the world, in fact. So how has it taken to electric power – does it work, or is it destined to be overshadowed by the likes of the Lotus Eletre, Porsche Cayenne Electric, and new BMW iX5?

Land Rover’s self-imposed brief for the car was to make it a Range Rover first, electric second – use the powertrain to enhance the car’s features but without compromise. It’s similar thinking to the Rolls-Royce Spectre, developed just down the road – the inherent smoothness and silence of electric motors actually lends itself extremely well to luxury motoring, as long as you can engineer round the compromises.

There’s nothing to give it away from the outside. Our test models are emblazoned with ‘Electric Prototype’, which gives the game away somewhat, but otherwise it’s the same nicely proportioned and generally handsome Range Rover Sport we’ve come to know and love. The same is true inside – the only giveaway is the electric range counter on the dashboard, and that when you thumb the starter button there’s no telltale diesel rumble.

The Range Rover Sport Electric (and its larger Range Rover cousin) haven’t had to be chopped about too much for this. They sit on the same underpinnings as the diesel and plug-in hybrid models – it’s a platform that was designed for electrification from the start.

That means an electric motor on each axle, a combined power output of a whopping 550hp (making it marginally more powerful than the V8 petrol, though not quite up to the heights of the 627hp SV) and a battery in between them with 118kWh of capacity.

My prototype test model showed it had just over two-thirds remaining charge, showing 209 miles of range. Even allowing for the unusual conditions we were driving in, I’d speculate a WLTP range figure slightly north of 300 miles. That’s less than the new BMW iX5, Lotus Eletre or Porsche Cayenne, but adding more battery capacity would mean more weight, which requires more horsepower, which means you need a bigger battery… It’s a vicious cycle that invites compromise, but Land Rover reckons that it’s got the balance right.

Interestingly, Land Rover hasn’t purchased its batteries or motors from an outside company – they’ve been developed totally in-house, and are built in Wolverhampton. That has no doubt led to the lengthy lead time – the car’s been teased for several years now.

The route Land Rover has set up for us dives on and off the Goodwood circuit, taking in a few obstacles. It starts with a gravel track, where I’m able to confirm that the electric Range Rover rides over lumps and bumps just as adroitly as its combustion siblings. Very few cars iron out the road surface like a Range Rover.

The electric motors are, naturally, superbly quiet, and they’ve been calibrated similarly to the combustion cars – where instead of the hyperactive throttle response you get in some electric alternatives, it’s rather softer and more progressive. This is obvious on the next obstacle, a 45-degree ramp with a hump at the top, where the RRS proves superbly easy to adjust with just one pedal.

Full one-pedal driving is available, incidentally – there are only two regen settings, rather than a myriad that you cycle through with paddles, but that all feeds into Land Rover’s philosophy of offering customers just a couple of the ‘right’ options, rather than all of them.

You get all the same drive modes and suspension height settings as the regular RRS – including Land Rover’s ‘Terrain Response’ system, which is no surprise. While ground clearance is reduced by around 20mm versus the combustion models, I’m confident in saying this is still one of the best off-roaders you can buy – and with the greater controllability of an electric motor, the traction control can work quicker and you don’t need a low-range gearbox.

Heading back onto the track, I’m faced with a slalom and a little handling circuit where I can test out the car’s agility. It doesn’t feel much heavier than the diesel – though that car still approaches three tonnes with passengers on board – and thanks to four-wheel steering it’s surprisingly manoeuvrable. It’s not as outwardly sporty as a Cayenne or Eletre, but it doesn’t embarrass itself either.

I then get to do a launch, which is fine. It feels quick, but not rabidly so – we’ve been so conditioned by EVs with hypercar-baiting performance that even a 550hp SUV feels relatively sedate. But it’s drama-free, and the nose doesn’t pitch up when you give it the full beans like old Range Rovers used to. Still, if you’re fond of a snarling V8, this won’t give you much in the way of thrills.

The final obstacles include a staircase – a miniature recreation of the one leading to Heaven’s Gate on Tianmen Mountain, famously climbed by a Range Rover Sport in an excellent bit of promotional material. I take the opportunity to switch on All-Terrain Progress Control – effectively off-road cruise control – where you can take your feet off the pedals and the car will, in theory, figure out how to get over whatever terrain you’re covering. It takes a minute, but the RRS Electric gets there and navigates us up the staircase with no issue.

A drive through the cannibalised fuselage of an aeroplane – just to prove the car’s all-round cameras really do work – and I’m back at the start.

How much is it going to cost? Well, the diesel Range Rover Sport starts just below £78,000. The cheapest plug-in hybrid is nearly £92,000. I’d expect the EV to cost over £100,000, putting it a tier above the Cayenne Electric or Polestar 3. First customer deliveries are due in 2027.

So the Range Rover Sport Electric is comfortable, silent and capable. Just as I expected. But how’s it going to hold up in the real world? Most owners don’t actually take their cars off-road, after all – the Range Rover lineup is more like a dive watch in that regard. Designed so that owners can feel good knowing they have the capability to tackle extreme conditions at the drop of a hat, even though they live in Knightsbridge.

That range figure is, I suspect, going to be the kicker for most people, because people also buy EVs like they buy dive watches. They may never go further than their 20-mile commute, but they want to know they have the range in reserve to go to John O’Groats if they need to.

That’s where cars like the BMW iX5, with its official 525-mile range, look so attractive. The Range Rover Sport is likely to do around 300 miles in gentle, real-world conditions, but you can expect that to drop further on long motorway drives where the car’s brick-like proportions don’t do it any favours.

Fast charge speeds will soften the blow – the car has an 800V electrical system, which in other vehicles results in top-ups at a rate of 350kW or higher. Combined with a clever thermal management system that should mean the battery’s always primed for the fastest charging at the right time, stops should be short and sweet – around 20 minutes for a 10-80% top-up, in theory.

The fact is that these are issues shared with most large, luxurious SUVs, and it’d be unreasonable to expect Land Rover to fix them. Potential customers won’t be looking at the Range Rover Sport Electric for cost reasons, or environmental ones – they’ll be interested in the capability and ownership experience. On the evidence of this brief prototype drive, electric power suits it extraordinarily well. Whether its range is sufficient – particularly beside a new generation of 400- and 500-mile alternatives – is the one big question that remains.

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