The new Range Rover Sport will approach the dynamics of the Porsche Cayenne and Lamborghini Urus
In October last year, the British brand Land Rover introduced the fifth generation of the luxury flagship Range Rover SUV and is now preparing its sporty version with the Sport prefix. There will be a wide choice of power plants, the top version of the SVR will be equipped with the BMW S63 biturbo-eight, and the all-electric version will debut later than the rest.
In Europe, the Range Rover Sport sells for about twice as much as the Range Rover, with 17,110 and 7,264 units sold last year, respectively, according to JATO Dynamics, while the situation has been reversed recently, with the status Range Rover enjoying more in demand than the Range Rover luxury Range Rover, sporty – in 2021, according to the AEB, 2,030 and 1,268 units were sold, respectively. That is, the new generation of Range Rover Sport is more of interest to Europeans than to many users, although the top petrol version of the SVR has every chance of increasing sales in our country (only 45 units have been sold recently in 2021.).
Range Rover fifth generation
According to the British magazine Autocar, the development of the new generation Range Rover Sport puts more emphasis on driving performance on asphalt than on off-road. Recall that with the change of generations, the older Range Rover switched to the MLA-Flex modular platform and changed the permanent transmission to an automatic front wheel clutch, which greatly annoyed fans of the hardcore SUV (however, there are few of those among Range Rover buyers), the geometric cross-country ability is also deteriorating a little. models (maximum ground clearance reduced from 303 to 295mm).
The new Range Rover Sport will be as unified as possible with the "fifth" Range Rover in terms of technology, that is, it will also have an interaxle clutch. What’s more, we wouldn’t be surprised if many, if not all, versions don’t have a low gear transfer case and the Range Rover Sport ends up being reclassified as a crossover. Most customers won’t notice the loss, but they’ll be pleased with the new ride quality – the next Range Rover Sport should be much lighter and more precise than the current one, including a 50% increase in body rigidity. %. In addition, the Range Rover Sport will be forced to fill the niche of new and unsuccessful Jaguar crossovers, because it was for them that the MLA platform was originally developed.
Plug-in hybrid version of the MLA-Flex platform
The power line of the new Range Rover Sport will be based on Ingenium petrol and diesel inline sixes (250-400 hp) with a 48-volt hybrid engine. There will also be fully plug-in hybrid versions, like the Range Rover before it, i.e. with a 38.2 kWh battery in the wheelbase and a 105 kW electric motor sandwiched between a 3.0-liter Ingenium petrol engine and an 8-speed gearbox. gears. ZF "automatic". The power reserve on electric traction with a load for such cars will be at least 100 km.
The main intrigue is the new top version of SVR. Now, remember, it is equipped with a 575-horsepower 5.0-liter supercharged V8 from the AJ series, but Land Rover is phasing out this engine in favor of the 4.4-liter twin-turbo engine of the BMW N63. In the "fifth" Range Rover, the German engine produces 530 hp, and the Range Rover Sport SVR will receive its sports version of the S63 with a return of at least 600 hp. (in the current BMW X5 M and X6 M in the Competition version, it produces 625 hp). In addition, the option of a hybrid Range Rover Sport SVR with an engine from the next BMW XM is not ruled out, and then future buyers of the British SUV will be able to count on a total power of 750 hp and dynamics at the level of the Lamborghini Urus, Porsche Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid and the future the top version of the Aston Martin DBX, that is, less than 4 sa "hundreds".
The debut date of the new Range Rover Sport has not yet been announced, but the premiere is likely to take place at the end of this year, and the model will hit the market in 2023. An all-electric version is expected no earlier than 2024, when a similar battery-powered Range Rover will appear. It is possible that electric motors from BMW will also be purchased, and then the recently introduced BMW iX M60 crossover will become the main benchmark in terms of power and dynamics.