Confirmed: Lagonda will reveal an electric SUV in 2021

Need more proof that the SUV is the new four-wheeled shorthand for ultimate luxury, improbable performance, and launching traditional brands into new stratospheres? Aston Martin’s ultra-luxury, Rolls-Royce-baiting offshoot, Lagonda, is the latest, and possibly the most ambitious proponent of the super-SUV theme. Today, Lagonda’s confirmed it’ll unveil an all-electric battery-powered SUV by 2021.

Lagonda says the new, as-yet unchristened SUV’s design will be an evolution of the Lagonda Vision concept saloon that we gawped over at the 2018 Geneva motor show. Crikey. Aston Martin’s chief designer, Marek Reichman, said: “The Lagonda SUV will retain the boldness of the Vision. Lagonda is a luxury brand, but it is also one rooted in technology. It will be like no other SUV to drive, so its looks have to reflect that new reality and to serve as pathfinder to a future in which the most desirable and prestigious automobiles still have a place."

The Vision concept proposed use of solid-state batteries, a 400-mile range, and wireless conductive charging. Because princesses, oligarchs and Premier League left-backs couldn’t possibly be bothered with a charging cable and socket. We’ll discover how much of that spec makes it into the Lagonda SUV in the coming years.

And if you’d like a Lagonda that isn’t SUV-shaped, hopefully you won’t be waiting too long. The company says the SUV will merely be the opening salvo in a range of ‘state of the art, emission-free luxury vehicles’.

How times have changed. The last time the Lagonda name appeared on an SUV concept, in 2009, the car in question was powered by a 6.0-litre V12 (with diesel and hybrid variants planned) and it looked like the lovechild of a whale-shark and a Rolls-Royce Phantom. So negative was the feedback that Lagonda disappeared for almost a decade in the meantime to reapproach its comeback.

And we’re sure it’s a complete coincidence that Lagonda has made this announcement literally a day before Rolls-Royce attempts to steal the ultimate luxury SUV title by revealing the new Cullinan. Pure chance, surely?