Land Rover Range Rover Electric review

If the EV's prices cause you to draw breath, here's some context. All Range Rovers are now £108k and upwards. They start in SE trim, then HSE. Next comes Autobiography, and that's the first trim that allows you to tick the box for the Electric.

It’s £154,070. But then it has 550bhp. A 540bhp petrol V8 is £147,680, so really the electric one, for the trim features provided and the power that motivates it, isn't expensive.

On finance, it's six months down and about £2,500 a month depending on provider, for 8,000 miles a year over four years.

That Autobiography trim buys you 24-way electric cooled and massaging front seats, and 'executive class' seats behind, electric rear sunblinds, a fridge, a sliding pano roof, 22-inch wheels, digital LED matrix lights, Meridian Signature sound, HUD and soft door closing.

You can add even posher seats of various kinds, and rear-seat entertainment, bigger wheels and so on, either as individual options or in the First Edition or SV trims. They trip over £190k.

Long-wheelbase comes in SV trim, starting at £215,670. You'll be even gladder of the four-wheel steering. If not driving, sit in the back. It comes only with the four-seat layout, rear passengers having big headrest screens and funky four-seat La-Z-boy style chairs, and a power-opening table.

How about running costs? And charging?

The battery is 118.5kWh, so make sure you can charge it at home. Paying 90p/kWh for public charging makes it a £100 recharge. Do it on a night rate and you might get away with seven or eight quid.

The onboard charger can accept three-phase AC at a useful 22kW, taking it 0-100 per cent in under five and a half hours. If you home charge at single-phase 7kW, it's three times that of course. On public DC it can take 350kW, and go 10-80 per cent in 22 minutes.

A real 300 mile range is doable, as it needs an average consumption of 2.5 mi/kWh, which we managed on a mixed test route. Although the route did include some fabulous empty upland roads where we got down to 1.8 mi/kWh.

Assuming 300 miles of long-trip range, then your 10-80 per cent recharge in 22 minutes would be adding 210 miles. That gives you Aberdeen to Bristol with just the one brief plug-in.