Review: Range Rover Sport Hybrid 2022

There's a simple reason we haven't covered anything from Land Rover for some years: The company has been positively glacial in its adoption of hybrid and EV tech. While other automakers forged ahead building reputations in genuine hybrid and full-electric tech, Land Rover continued to pretend it was coming to the party as well with its “mild hybrids,” a thoroughly abused and misleading term that, thankfully, is falling out of favor. 

Finally, however, the marque has caught up. Well, with the hybrid world at least. You'll have to wait until 2024—six whole years after sister brand Jaguar released its I-Pace EV—for a fully electric Range Rover. 

Before we go further, yes, I can hear you. These new Range Rover hybrids (in normal and Sport guises, sharing the same MLA-Flex architecture) are indeed technically not the first hybrid Range Rovers. But they are the brand's first proper ones. 

Some may well remember 2018's plug-in hybrid model, but that initial half-hearted attempt had a claimed max EV range of just 31 miles. In real life, many said that number dropped to the low to mid twenties. When I tried it, admittedly on a pre-launch model, if memory serves I got about 10 miles on a charge. It was practically useless. What's more, charging time for that measly EV-only range took seven and a half hours on a 10-amp home charger. I strongly suspect few who bought that 2018 car ever bothered to charge it regularly.

Because of that shared architecture, the new 2022 genuine hybrids are mechanically and electronically identical, whether you opt for the Range Rover or Range Rover Sport plug-ins. The Sport models are a touch stiffer, mind you, thanks to a shorter roofline. The US gets the less powerful P440e model, while the UK can also opt for the P510e, but all use the same 38.2-kWh battery powering a 143-horsepower electric motor that helps a 3.0-liter turbocharged straight-six gasoline engine. The P440e offers a total of 440 hp and 457 foot-pounds of torque, while the tweaked combustion engine in the P510e kicks up to 509 hp and 516 foot-pounds with a claimed zero-to-60 time of 5.2 seconds.

But, in truth, I care little about the internal combustion offerings on show here. That 38.2-kWh battery is why I've returned to look at Land Rovers, specifically the Range Rover Sport P510e. In full EV mode (hybrid is the default setting), Land Rover claims up to 70 miles of emmission-free motoring. What's more, thanks to DC charging at 50 kW, you can top up from zero to 80 percent in about an hour. Home 7-kW charging will brim the battery in five hours. Quite the improvement from 2018—and it also makes it entirely possible, considering the US average distance driven per day is 35 miles, to run the hybrid Rand Rovers purely on electric for much of the time even if you don't recharge diligently.

When it comes to the look of the new Range Rovers, once again the company has chosen to go down the path of reductive design as dictated by chief creative officer Gerry McGovern. It’s all about taking the unnecessary stuff away, supposedly leaving you with the essence of the Range Rover aesthetic and nothing else. It’s a theory that’s has worked well for Land Rover over the years. It’s also meant that there have been few radical alterations or missteps. 

Here, the definite wins are the slimmer grille, the flush window glass with the pillars, and those rear lights that almost disappear—and if not, they certainly look a darn sight smarter than the alternatives on the road. However, there is a flip side to this reductive ethos, when you take too much away. It is seen in the general rear view of the Sport. It could almost be the behind of a number of SUVs. Driving in convoy, for the first time ever I looked at the back end of the new Range Rover Sport and thought, “I’m not sure I’d be able to instantly tell what it was.” Admittedly, the same cannot be said for the side and front profiles. Here, classic Range Rover styling is evident. 

Let's get to the important bit right away. The plug-in hybrid Sport's bulk is significant (6,030 pounds), but in hybrid mode the electric motor is brought in to smooth out the ride and, especially in urban driving, set you off using serene, silent EV power. It means you initially move away easily, then the petrol engine kicks in almost imperceptibly. It works well.

The odd part is that in EV mode if you floor the accelerator, the Range Rover doesn't leap forward with all the torque you'd expect from an EV motor. In fact, there's a definite lag, like it is pretending to be an internal-combustion engine. It makes the car feel very different from other vehicles running on pure EV power, and those who thought they'd be getting a Range Rover with ridiculous performance away from traffic lights thanks to electric power may be disappointed. What it does do is meld with the ICE to make sure you are unaware of the change in drive.

As for range, I took the hybrid Sport out for a pure EV drive, forcing it not to go into the default hybrid mode. Through urban traffic, then motorways, then winding country roads, I treated the car like it was a normal ICE auto with little or no consideration for economic driving. Just like many owners will in real life, in other words. 

The results were impressive. Just shy of one and a quarter hours of driving, I ran out of electric power and the petrol engine subtly took over. I'd gone just under 75 km, or 46 miles. Now, remember that I wasn't trying to drive conservatively at all. And despite Land Rover's claims of 70 miles' range, the company admits that “real world” driving would likely result in a 50 miles of electric motoring. And that's what I got. In fact, I could have easily gone over 50 miles had I been even just a little more careful. 

The EV help doesn't stop there, of course. As evidenced in our Rivian review, electric power with all the torque all the time is a real boon for off-roading. Here, Land Rover has augmented its already clever all-terrain algorithms to include the assistance of the electric motor. You don't need to do anything, of course. You just set the car to whatever madness you want to traverse, and it works out what best power to use on the fly (which does not, interestingly, always include EV—the “rock crawl” setting, for example,  shuns electric entirely as ICE power on such ground performs better).

If you're not as keen to drive off-road or keep it in EV mode, which understandably limits the performance, you'll be wanting to know if these hybrids drive like a normal Range Rover, with a mix of power when called upon but the ability to waft you along in the luxurious manner associated with the brand's previous vehicles. The honest answer is yes and no. 

Yes the ride is luxurious, but not as much of a magic carpet as previously demonstrated in the Sport version. The ride has been stiffened and flattened out. This is down to the arrival in January of Matt Becker, one of the UK's most respected vehicle engineers, who joined up after a seven-year stint as Aston Martin's chief engineer. Becker came on too late to get fully stuck in on the normal Range Rover, and has “removed the float so the steering is more responsive” on the Sport version, according to the company. It certainly makes you feel more attached to the road. 

What doesn't as much as you'd expect is the car's 48-volt anti-roll bars, similar to the system you'll find in the Bentley Bentayga. The active system is powerful enough to keep the three-ton car dead flat round the hairiest of corners, like the Bentayga does. But instead, Range Rover has decided to allow some roll to make it feel more natural, adding that some customers might feel ill, something akin to seasickness, if they hurtle round a corner yet remain completely flat. I don't agree. I think the fully flat Bentayga version is better.

In contrast, the active all-wheel steering, where the rear wheels can turn by up to 7.3 degrees, makes urban maneuvering a breeze and morphs the Range Rover into a seemingly much smaller vehicle. And, of course, the same nimble benefits can be brought into play off-road. 

The headlights are certainly an achievement. The “pixel” matrix LED system is capable of shuttering off, at the Sport's considerable speed, 16 separate objects simultaneously, allowing you to potentially deploy full beam at all times. It also uses the car's satellite navigation system to adjust the beam direction proactively as you drive.

But there is one inescapable issue when driving the new hybrid Range Rovers: wind noise. There's a lot of it. Especially if you go over 60 mph. It's so prominent, in fact, that you might marvel how such an obvious problem could not have been picked up by the development team. Apparently, Becker said exactly the same thing when he arrived at Land Rover and is working on a solution. This is good news, because both the Range Rover and the Range Rover Sport need one. Look at it this way: If you paid more than $100,000 for a luxury car, especially one with built-in, silent electric power, you would rightly feel very much aggrieved if, at the end of a few hour's freeway driving, you felt in need of nice sit-down in a quiet room. 

Inside, you have two screens: a 13.7-inch digital instrument display, and, in the center, a floating (in that it stands proud of the dashboard) 13.1-inch touchscreen infotainment set-up with a control stack beneath it. The screens are large and responsive, but what's striking is that the much-trumpeted center dual-screen setup found in previous models has been dropped in favor of this simpler, better arrangement.

In that last iteration, Land Rover had fallen foul of the dizzying things it could display with not one but two screens in the middle, going as far as to have circular knobs that encroached on this lower second screen that when pressed controlled different options. Clever? Oh yes. Simple, intuitive, and driver friendly? Not so much. Here, things have sensibly calmed down. The upper screen is big and more than sufficient to display anything you need, including the various feeds from the cameras dotted about the SUV, crucial for off-road navigation. The lower environmental controls are just where you expect to find them; they do their individual jobs and nothing more.  

There are more luxurious interiors out there, but I like the option to spec Ultrafabrics' vegan polyurethane material as the greener option. The industry in general is getting very good at engineering synthetic seat fabrics that can match leather in every way.

The optional Meridian Signature Surround Sound System, from $4,236 (£3,625), is the premium pick for audiophiles. Some 35 speakers are dotted about the cabin driven by a 1,680-watt amplifier. There are even new headrest and backrest speakers for the rear passengers to get that 3D feel. The setup is formidable, and very loud, with faithful sound reproduction and excellent range. The baffling thing for me is the headrests. 

Range Rover has decided to also use these headrest speakers for piping in fake engine noise, which you certainly don't need, and also to tantalizingly offer active noise cancellation. Yes, supposedly, this setup will dampen unwanted noise. The trouble is, if you have the system, there is no way to switch it off, so it's hard to test to see what conditions are like in its absence. 

I will say that as I drove along, I moved my head back into the headrest to try to get the full ANC effect, and then forward away from it. I could just about hear a difference when I did this, but only barely. This is nothing like the effective ANC you'll find in headphones, which, considering you have nothing covering your ears, is not surprising. It is not strong enough to counter that excessive wind noise either.

While I have some gripes about wind noise, a couple of handling issues, and the ANC that isn't really ANC, I was genuinely impressed with hybrid abilities of the new Range Rovers—the Sport in particular. Not only is the EV range more than good, the use of the system in off-road activity takes the already mighty capabilities of these cars and improves them further. 

You can see where some corners have been cut, but the overall impression is that these hybrid Range Rovers, with their exceptional urban handling and economy (which is where most will spend all their lives, if we're honest) are the undoubtedly the pick of the new models from Land Rover. And they bode well for the full EV version, even if we are going to have to wait another two years to see it. For now, I am just glad Land Rover has genuinely joined the EV party.