Living with a… Range Rover plug-in hybrid (Month 5)

The Range Rover brand now spans everything from the Evoque to the Velar, the Range Rover Sport and the flagship model of Jaguar Land Rover, the peerless Range Rover itself. The large SUV is still the best in the business, with unmatchable off-roading capabilities but, more importantly, a degree of luxury equalling the best Mercedes or BMW have to offer. The downsides? A price that matches its highfalutin air, and a question mark over reliability that continues to dog Land Rover.
Skip to: Month 1 – Living the dream Month 2 – Summer fun Month 3 – Tested to the limit Month 4 – Is it better than a Bentley? Month 5 – An attempt at constructive criticism

Wow, what a thing of beauty the Range Rover is. If you’re wondering whether a car that costs almost £140,000 can ever be worth it, this best-of-British SUV provides a resounding yes. For those souls fortunate enough to have it, mind.
We had the choice of green or gold, but there was no question and it has to be the launch colour, a pale, delicate, shimmering gold that’s more glistening Champagne bubbles than a cheap Ratners chain. Inside the vast, silent space is filled with light from the huge windows and glass roof which bounces off the cream leather, infusing the interior with serenity. You’ll have to forgive the hyperbole as well. I’m in love, and this car is undoubtedly a purchase to be made by the heart, not the head. Climb up onto the elevated driver’s seat and that chisel-jawed bonnet stretches out in front of you. You sit high but ensconced, with an arm rest and a wide centre console between you and your passenger. This houses a refrigerated compartment and multiple layers of trays, drawers and cup holders that disappear down into the bowels of the car, allowing you to stow one-litre drinks bottles, huge purses, phones and books before sliding the wood-veneered lids back across everything to from a seamless, neat surface. We have the executive seats in the rear, which means the two main rear seats recline with heating and massage, and the back of the third seat powers down automatically to reveal a digital touchscreen for rear occupants to control the temperature, windows and media with additional hidden cup holders and an arm rest. You can imagine my kids’ permanent delight. The school run has become a thing of joy, for which I can only thank Land Rover on a daily basis. As it has for me, for this is as much a driver’s car as it is a passenger’s dream come true. The suspension almost rivals that of Rolls-Royce, with a beguiling waftability thanks to air suspension. The steering is light but specific and, perhaps best of all, thanks to four-wheel steering and the resulting surprisingly small turning circle, we can turn into our very narrow drive, walls on both sides, without stressing every time. Believe me, countless delivery drivers have bottled it - it’s that tight. But the Range Rover pivots around its midriff and pulls in, flattering our driving skills. As for the electric range of the battery Land Rover is one of the few brands to be honest on its website about what’s achievable in real-world usage. The maximum quoted range is 52 miles, and in this first month of driving it I’d say we’re averaging 45-47 miles, which is very good. The timer is also easy to set up on the large touch-screen so it starts when our tariff switches to off-peak at midnight. It’s fully charged by 5am, when it reverts to peak cost. Just one glitch so far. I came down one morning and the battery had only charged to 90 per cent. When I started the car, the engine kicked in, and the screen told me the battery was not available. However, after parking up, switching off, locking the car and walking the dog for half an hour it was working fine when I turned the car back on. We’ll reserve judgement, but the heart did rather sink. Too many people have had software or electronics glitches with JLR-badged stuff over the years, but I’m told improvements are being made all the time internally. We’ll see. Back to top

Still pinching myself about driving round such a stunning car on a daily basis. The boys keep asking when it's going back and sobbing when I tell them.
Meanwhile with summer here and the endless round of cricket matches for two boys in school and club teams, plus school fairs and village fetes, the electric tailgate of the boot has come in very handy. Of course, we should be eating quails' eggs out of a Fortnum & Mason wicker hamper for the peak-Range Rover living. The reality has, instead, been greasy pizza out of takeaway boxes after a match. But the point remains, we can all sit on the tailgate, legs swinging in the breeze, living our best lives and it's a mighty fine way to pass July. To keep things real, I've had my oldest cleaning the Range Rover. I think the look on his face in the photo says it all, especially as his younger brother got to clean our electric Renault Megane which, at half the size, took half the time. Still, no one said life's fair, and all that. The digital screen inside the Range Rover is a thing of beauty, albeit a very hot thing to touch the edges of, which is slightly alarming and can't be great for the car's energy consumption. Everything is so elegantly sketched out, from the transparent image of the car showing the battery charging, to the way the album playing on your phone fills the screen. We love it that you can easily switch between multiple iPhones to enable CarPlay with just one touch - we currently have five phones paired and everyone wants their playlist in the morning. We also love the X-ray vision of the car when you're parking. The camera view showing the car's position on the screen becomes see-through, so you can see what's beneath it - i.e., whether you're sitting within a parking bay, or have run over the charging lead, or child, on your drive way, for example. Given this is such a massive car, it's unbelievably handy to see if you're within the white lines of a parking space in town. Electric range is still enough for a day's local travel. We live in rolling countryside in Kent, which is the least economical driving for this nearly three-tonne car. Lots of hill starts around town drain the battery quickly if you're using electric power alone rather than the hybrid system where the engine can kick in. In those instances, we are getting about 35-40 miles of range, versus 60 miles on a long motorway journey at a cruise. Back to top

Spent the summer in Cornwall with four boys and one dog. Oh, and one paddleboard, six wetsuits, towels, bedding, clothes, frisbees, rugby balls, dog bed, endless boxes of cereal, loaves of bread and cans of Coke to try (and fail) to fill teenage stomachs.
The Range Rover was a superb family mover on the six-hour drive. Given there are six of us in our blended family (not including Milo the lab), we had to take both the Range Rover and our family Peugeot 508 SW. Both were brilliant for the schlep from Kent to Cornwall and similarly comfortable and fuel efficient. Even the Range Rover managed 38mpg fully loaded once the battery had discharged itself of its obligations, which was after 55 miles of motorway driving. That's pretty good for a very big, very heavy SUV. We ended up really putting the Range Rover to the test on the way back when, with me and my two sons on board, we had to pick up my ex-husband and his wife who had broken down half way to meet us and take the boys for their second holiday. So, we had to find space for them, their dog and their luggage and transport everyone to their holiday house. The boot happily took all the luggage (four cabin baggage suitcases and one full-size suitcase, duvets, cases of wine...) because we could stack it right to the roof. And thanks to Range Rover's brilliant ClearSight technology the now obscured rear-view mirror switched from traditional reflection to a camera feed of what’s behind you, all at the press of a button on the bottom. So, even if you can’t see out of the rear window you can still ‘use’ the mirror. It sounds like a gimmick right up to the point where you could do with loading the boot right up to the ceiling, then it's the best bit of tech ever. Ditto the ClearSight Ground View tech, which presents the driver with a camera generated view of what's around and underneath the bonnet and the rear overhang of the car via the central screen. It means you can see if your front or rear is outside a parking bay, or you're going to miss the kerb, or you're going to hit the dog who's helpfully lain down on the drive right where you want to park. That sort of thing. See? Luxurious AND practical. And still that four-wheel steering is the best thing in the business. Every day I say a little prayer of gratitude for it as I swing into my impossibly tight driveway and this massive car pivots around its middle. Back to top

Every month at least one fellow driver wistfully asks me about the Range Rover with questions like “is it as nice to drive as it looks”, “is it really that much better than a Volvo XC90”, “how does it compare with the Bentley Bentayga” or “how much is it?” and so on. To which I answer “yes”, “yes”, “very favourably” and “a lot”.
It's just such an incredibly beautiful car, and the whole family is now in countdown mode towards the sad day in November when a mean man comes and takes it away. My 10-year-old keeps wondering if Land Rover might possibly forget we've got it. "We live in hope, son, we live in hope," is the only possible reply. Meanwhile, we made full use of its epic boot with a trip to the garden centre to buy half their stock for our driveway widening scheme at home. You might reasonably say if we didn't have the Range Rover, and 15 other press cars, we wouldn't need to widen the drive, but let's gloss over that. Anyway, the split tailgate is very handy in all manner of ways. It’s a very posh and uplifting place to sit to watch country pursuits, as one should when one has a Land Rover, and even has a cup-holder moulding on each side. But its second handy use is as a closed gate to keep a boot-full of plants or other stuff in place while you load up. As my mother and I drove half the garden centre home, she and I both remarked on the floating ride of this beast, which I would say is the number one thing to set it apart from the Volvo XC90, which I'd previously run on long-term loan as well . Our model has air suspension which lowers the car when you park up, and lifts it when you set off. But, more than that, it cushions you from every rut and disturbance in the road surface, which is remarkable given this thing weighs nearly three tonnes. You never crash, bump or thud over or through anything. It really is touching the magnificence of Rolls-Royce's famous ‘waftability’, and is largely what sets the Range Rover apart from any of its peers. And puts the rightful claim on that painful price tag. We're considering chaining ourselves to it in a sort of reverse Just Stop Oil protest when Land Rover comes to reclaim it. Back to top

I'm scrabbling around for negative things to say about the Range Rover, on the grounds that this long-term test is starting to read like a gushing advert and I'm a journalist with integrity. If that's not an oxymoron.
Here goes. The air con is rubbish. Something I’ve encountered across all Land Rover and Jaguar branded cars. The temperature controls bear no resemblance to real life - it's always either too hot or too cold, and you set the temperature to 22 degrees, and find cold air blasting out of the vents even though the ambient temperature is already frigid. Ditto the fan speed. It does very little until you turn it to strength five. So, there you go. Range Rovers are rubbish. Except they're not. They're utterly wonderful British-built luxury cars. And ours has made me sigh with happiness every single time I get into it for five months on the trot now, which is a record. The deluge of rain we've had this autumn has been no problem for this gold storm trooper. We've just ploughed through deep water, the arc of the puddle barely making it over the high bonnet and to the windscreen. I've driven through flowing rivers on Land Rover launches in the past, and know the wading depth of these beasts is quite deep indeed. The only downside to wet weather for a car that weighs nearly three tonnes is muddy, waterlogged land. The superior traction control and off-road settings will only get you so far if you're sinking at the same time, and there is no schadenfreude as satisfying as watching a really expensive SUV going nowhere in mud while light little front-wheel drive Polos and Fiestas skip happily about. It was hard to ignore the smirks the other day after our dog walk, when we briefly struggled to reverse slowly out of the muddy parking space in the grassy carpark. Now the nights are drawing in, the soft interior lighting and multiple colours for the door trims and footwells is a delight. The kids have been through the palette via the touch-screen and we've settled on orange because, combined with the cream leather, it creates the cosiest, softest lounge vibe in which to relax on long journeys. It's also time to turn on the heated seats and heated steering wheel. Neither have a noticeable impact on battery range while in electric mode. We're still getting somewhere above 50 miles on one charge, unless we spend all day driving round the hilly town in which we live. The Range Rover does not like the stop-start traffic, and hauling its bulk away from junctions hammers the range. Given this weird weather we've also made considerable use of the refrigerated compartment in the middle of the car, which is so well insulated, you can whack it on for 10 minutes and it'll keep your drink bottle or chocolate snacks cold all day. In 20 years of motoring journalism I've never tested the heated steering wheel and car's fridge in the same report. which is either a telling sign of climate change, or the versatility of the Range Rover. Or both. Back to top