‘Land Rover Defender also fully electric from facelift’

The modern Land Rover Defender, introduced in 2020 and quite popular, is currently only available with combustion engines and plug-in hybrid powertrains, but will also have a fully electric variant from its facelift. That writes the British Auto Express based on sources within Jaguar Land Rover. With the facelift, which is scheduled for 2025, the Defender body will be transferred in largely unchanged form to a different architecture: that of the new Range Rover. That car will also be marketed as an EV in the long term (from 2024).

Although the car will be on the Range Rover’s completely different MLA Flex platform from 2025, its dimensions will remain the same. Also in terms of exterior and interior design, major changes are not to be expected, as the current version of both is well received by customers. The platform change is therefore not taking place to facilitate a significantly different car, but above all to enable the arrival of an EV. The current base of the Defender is not or insufficiently suitable for this.

Land Rover Defender 90, 110 and 130 electric

Last year it appeared that Land Rover was also testing a Defender with a hydrogen cell, but due to the forthcoming platform change, it is likely that – if introduced – it will certainly not come on the market before a battery-powered version. The British indicate that the Defender will have an electric powertrain in both the 90, 110 and 130 variant. The Range Rover platform is large enough for a battery pack with a capacity of at least 100 kWh, which means that a driving range of ‘more than 480 kilometers’ should be achievable. As mentioned, the facelift is scheduled for 2025, after which the first deliveries of the first electric Defenders should take place in 2026.

Because electric motors can be controlled more precisely, an electric variant is probably even more off-road capable.