Electrification and luxury cars go together like silk and a good suit, unlocking absurd levels of refinement, effortless performance and near-total serenity. When you’re attempting a hostile takeover of a multi-billion dollar company while pathologically tweeting about it, there’s no better place to do it from than the lounge-like rear seats of the Mercedes-Maybach EQS SUV or the Cadillac Escalade IQ.
Now British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover, too, is making its biggest electrification push yet, with four new all-electric models on the way, the latest of which is the new Range Rover GT. It will be the fifth addition to the Range Rover portfolio after the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, Velar and Evoque. JLR’s other three EVs in the pipeline include the Range Rover Electric, Range Rover Sport Electric, and the polarizing Jaguar Type 01.
The upcoming Range Rover Sport Electric will arrive sooner, but it’s based on a platform designed to support ICE vehicles. The GT will use a native, software-defined EV platform.
Photo by: Land Rover
The GT will debut an all-new, ground-up software-defined-vehicle platform called the Electrified Modular Architecture (EMA). That’s different from what underpins the Range Rover Electric and the Sport Electric, which get the flexible Modular Longitudinal Architecture (MLA), which also supports combustion and plug-in hybrid drivetrains. EMA will be BEV-native and also support future conventional hybrids.
Land Rover isn’t revealing the full design of the electric Range Rover GT. But this is a camouflaged preview.
Photo by: Land Rover
I saw the new GT prototype in person at the automaker’s Electric Propulsion Manufacturing Center in Wolverhampton, U.K. While I’m not allowed to discuss the exterior design or any technical details about its battery and motors until later this year, I can talk about its interior and what it felt like from the front and rear seats. The interior will likely be one of its biggest strengths, so we might as well start with that.
[Full Disclosure: JLR flew me to England and paid for hotel and travel expenses.]
JLR designers said the GT’s interior was inspired by a modern luxury home. While that’s mostly marketing nonsense, it did feel like that in a couple of ways. It gets the largest panoramic sunroof of any Range Rover, letting in ample natural light, and there are plenty of smooth, flat, table-like surfaces inside. Broadly speaking, Range Rover has taken the hyper-minimalist route, like Tesla, and managed to do so tastefully.
The interior of the Land Rover Range Rover GT.
Photo by: Land Rover
There are no physical buttons on the center console, with most functions embedded in the central display. I loved that Range Rover didn’t go with a pillar-to-pillar display like most luxury automakers do these days. Digital real estate is kept to a minimum, with an iPad-sized central infotainment screen and a small digital gauge cluster about the size of what’s on the Ford Mustang Mach-E.
Seated in a U.S.-spec, left-hand-drive car, I was able to reach the right corner of the central screen effortlessly, without leaning or moving forward. The screens themselves weren’t switched on, so I can’t comment on the software experience. JLR isn’t particularly known for great software, and that’s a big area for improvement even on its current lineup. Hopefully the BEV-native architecture will help on that front.
Another highlight of this interior is the material quality, which felt exquisite. The seats are made from what Range Rover engineers call “ultrafabrics,” which are 50% lighter than leather and environmentally friendly. JLR claims to have simulated 10 years of wear on them and said the seats still felt new afterward. There will be Dual Tone and Shadow Black interior themes, but it’s safe to assume customers will be able to personalize with a bucketload of options.
Land Rover says the seats are made of “ultrafabrics,” which it claims are lighter and more environmentally friendly than leather.
Photo by: Land Rover
The driver’s seating position felt tucked in, landing somewhere between a saloon and an SUV. Visibility out of the windshield was great, though a studio setting is hardly the ideal place to judge that. The stalks on the steering wheel column, one for the drive selector and the other for turn indicators, had an exceptional tactile feel, with the most satisfying clicks I’ve ever experienced on stalks in any car.
The rear seats gave me a sense of occasion that few other cars can match. While the seats themselves looked ordinary from the outside, once I sat down, they felt like royalty. The cushioning was exceptional, and the headrests felt like pillows. There was enough legroom for my 5’7″ frame to stretch out. Range Rover said the GT will have “best-in-class” legroom, and that class is the F-segment: think Bentley Flying Spur, Porsche Panamera, Mercedes S-Class, and the like.
The rear seats of the new electric Range Rover GT are very spacious.
Photo by: Land Rover
However, the interior felt a lot more understated than any of those cars. It’s not something you’d actively brag about to your billionaire friends, but they’d be surprised when they ride with you while you both plan mass layoffs in your companies to offset AI capex spending. Maybachs, Bentleys and Rolls-Royces are still way more opulent, though—this will slot somewhere alongside the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW 7 Series in terms of overall luxury feel.
JLR said the GT will be available in four- or five-seat configurations. But four seats is what customers will really want, to get the center console with dual wireless charging pads, cup holders, touchscreen for media and climate, and a nice armrest with USB Type-C ports.
All told, this isn’t some far-fetched sci-fi concept. The vehicle I sat in was a production-intent prototype, and the automaker already has several prototypes entering the final phase of road testing. I saw many of these cars driving around the automaker’s engineering campus in Gaydon, England.
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Source: Land Rover
It’s worth remembering that JLR’s major electrification push is coming quite late in the game. Sure, the Jaguar I-Pace was ahead of its time, but it was a commercial flop and is now mostly known for its Waymo robotaxi fame in the U.S. There was a long gap between the I-Pace and JLR’s second-generation EVs that are now in the pipeline. The Range Rover Electric is also delayed by years, having been in development for nearly half a decade while Chinese automakers continue rolling out new models in under two years.
But the automaker believes the delay will be worth it. It used the time to fine-tune these new EVs, bringing nearly all development and production in-house, which could serve as a blueprint for future models. Hopefully, when they’re finally out, they’ll be worth the wait. And I can’t wait to share more about the other things I saw at the automaker’s plant in England, but you’ll have to wait a few more months for that.
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