Signpost: Range Rover builds choice into electric future

The Range Rover Electric made a steep rock climb at JLR’s Gaydon proving ground in the United Kingdom feel as demanding as a Johannesburg speed bump. We had crossed sand and gravel before reaching the rocks, and the big SUV picked its way up and over with ease.

JLR (Jaguar Land Rover) has given its first electric Range Rover an equally powerful advantage back at the factory: it can share a production line with versions powered by other technologies. For a manufacturer selling luxury vehicles into countries with vastly different charging infrastructure, that flexibility provides a way to keep serving customers as buying preferences change.

“We know that the penetration rate of full-electric Range Rovers will be different in the different regions of this world,” said Martin Limpert, Range Rover global managing director, speaking to Gadget at JLR’s Gaydon headquarters.

“That was part of the construct from the beginning: we can build the plug-in hybrid, the mild hybrid, the electric vehicle, all on the same plant in Solihull, on the same production line.

“So we’re flexible and we can adjust our supply to the demand of the individual markets.”

A plug-in hybrid can cover part of a journey on battery power and recharge from a socket. A mild hybrid uses electrical assistance alongside its combustion engine. Building these alongside a fully electric model gives JLR room to change the mix leaving the factory as orders come in.

South African manufacturers can learn from JLR preparing one production line for customers choosing different powertrains. With 70.5% of South Africa’s light-vehicle production exported in 2025, factories here need the capacity to follow demand across markets moving towards electrification at different speeds.

Some of that investment is already happening, for example, at BMW’s Rosslyn plant, where a R4.2-billion upgrade included electrification and workforce training. The plant builds plug-in hybrid and combustion-engine X3s on the same line, and is the sole global producer of the plug-in hybrid version.

At Solihull in England, JLR’s inclusion of a fully electric Range Rover brings further engineering demands. The company developed its own batteries and electric drive units, the assemblies that combine the motors with equipment delivering power to the wheels. Its engineers had to accommodate those components while preserving the vehicle’s off-road capability.

Limpert was candid about a decision that contributed to the programme taking longer than planned.

“In the beginning, we thought an architecture where we have a permanent-magnet motor on the rear axle and an induction motor on the front would do it. But the more we tested it, especially in terms of repeatability… that was not provided with that technology.”

Simon Fairbrother, programme chief for Range Rover and Range Rover Sport Electric, offered another example. Fitting the electric drive unit changed the length of the driveshafts connecting it to the wheels. Keeping the existing suspension components would have restricted how far the wheels could move up and down.

“Range Rover’s got 450mm of wheel articulation, and that’s one of the things that gives us the off-road capability,” he told Gadget.

“We could have said, ‘Oh yeah, well, it’s an electric vehicle. People’s expectations are going to be different. We’ll just restrict the wheel articulation and it’ll be fine.’ But we didn’t. We changed the suspension component so that we maintained that 450mm of wheel articulation.”

On the rocks at Gaydon, the engineering produced a vehicle that made rough ground thoroughly enjoyable. However, the business case also depends on what happens after an owner leaves the showroom.

Limpert identified home charging as a distinction within markets, as well as between them. A customer with a house can have a very different ownership experience from someone living in an apartment in the same city.

“There will be places like Tokyo, Singapore, maybe also… Cape Town or Johannesburg, where it’s apartment living and the installation of a home charger is not as easy.”

Fairbrother also recognised a South African customer group that has already invested in much of the supporting infrastructure.

“Many of the more affluent people in South Africa have already got solar power and battery banks and so on. For them the car’s perfect.”

JLR’s approach gives South African manufacturers a challenge for factory upgrades: how much scope will it provide to supply the vehicles that export markets want next?

In short, skills and component suppliers have to develop alongside assembly lines.

* Arthur Goldstuck is CEO of World Wide Worx, editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za, and author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI – The African Edge”.

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