Do you get annoyed by the enormous BPM fines that The Hague pours out on you if you want to buy a nice car? The Land Rover Defender P400e, a plug-in hybrid, is, thanks to its theoretical low CO2 emissions, the cheapest Defender … with (second) highest power!
What is striking about the Land Rover Defender P400e?
A Defender with a plug may take some getting used to for the purist, but actually the P400e plug-in hybrid is just a harbinger of the future of Land Rover. Land Rover has big plans for electric cars: every new model will be electric by 2025.
Such a plug-in Defender has many advantages in the Netherlands, because in one fell swoop the price drops well below 100,000 euros. A bargain! Compared to the other versions than … He owes this favorable base price to the CO2 emissions of 74 grams. That’s less than a Toyota Prius.
The Defender P400e is only available as a five-door 110, the Defender 90 with three doors has to go through life without plugs…
What are the advantages of the Land Rover Defender P400e?
Do you have a minute? If we keep it short, we can suffice with ‘almost everything’. What a fabulous reincarnation Land Rover has made of the famous old Defender, the car that the British nobility uses to move about its rolling estates. Recognition and nostalgia were given a place in an otherwise ultramodern designed car.
In the Netherlands, the plug is a big plus. Because the P400e is a plug-in hybrid and in theory 1 to 30.3 drives, it avoids the sky-high bpm amounts of the other Defender models. This presents the special fact that the Defender P400e is not only the cheapest (84,145 euros), but also the second most powerful Defender. A two-litre petrol engine with 300 hp works together with an electric motor that produces 143 hp, together they are good for 404 hp and 640 Nm.
The electric motor is not only good for your wallet, but also for your experiences in the field. Earlier this year we already did a test with the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon plug-in hybrid and we noticed that an off-road vehicle with an electric motor can be dosed better than a petrol or diesel engine. That is also the case with the Defender. The plug-in hybrid ‘just’ has all the features on board for the heavy work, such as low gearing, a differential lock and hill descent control. But the off-road adventure takes place in dead silence thanks to the electric motor.
What are the downsides of the Land Rover Defender P400e?
Don’t imagine too much of electric driving with the Defender: if you fully charge the battery, it will be empty again after 40 kilometers on a winter day. The four-cylinder engine then has to work hard to get this monster of 2600 kilos forward. You don’t even notice that in the performance or the engine noise, but especially in the consumption. Just blow through on the German highway and you can be happy if you get 1 in 6. Different cake than the 1 in 30 from the folder…
Furthermore, this car is the nightmare of anyone who does not like cramped parking spaces and narrow alleys in picturesque inner cities. The public charging stations in the Netherlands are more suited to good middle-class cars than to off-road executioners, but fortunately the Land Rover’s reversing cameras work excellently. The Defender owner will probably not run into this quickly, of course he has his own charging station on his estate.
Want to experience Auto Review’s weekly mud battles?
Then our free newsletter is for you!
When will the Land Rover Defender P400e come and what is the price?
The Land Rover Defender with plug is already for sale. Usually it doesn’t get cozy when we talk about prices of nice cars in the Netherlands, but now we pour ourselves a good glass of single malt whiskey. The Defender P400e is by far the cheapest version with a price of 84,145 euros. This makes it no less than 30,120 euros cheaper than the basic version of the Defender 110 with ‘only’ 300 hp.
If you compare the P400e with the top model, the P525 V8, the price difference is even greater, namely 128,923 euros! For that amount you can buy a Range Rover Sport plug-in hybrid (price: 100,304 euros) and you also have money left over for an adventurous holiday in the breathtaking Scottish Highlands, where the Defender feels just as at home as Hugo de Jonge. at a press conference.
What do I think of the Land Rover Defender P400e?
During the Defender’s photo shoot it was cold and it had snowed a little. The forest roads around Nijmegen had turned into mud paths. The sound of mud splashing against the undercarriage of the car, and the certainty that the Defender will easily get this job done, is priceless. You tend to buy an old English haunted castle, so that you really have a valid reason to buy this Defender.
The wait is for a fully electric Defender!