The Range Rover Velar will be succeeded by a model that will become a pure EV by 2025, Autocar reports. The mid-range model in the Range Rover brand line-up will be the first to receive the makeover to emerge from the brand’s production line in Halewood, United Kingdom.
In becoming a fully electric vehicle for its next-generation, the Velar will also move from the current D7 architecture which it shares with the Jaguar F-Pace, to the all-new, dedicated electric platform named EMA, according to the report.
Despite the SUV billing of Land Rover products, the EMA platform that will underpin the next-generation Velar will be a “considerably more road-focused proposition” than its upcoming brand stablemates, the electric versions of the flagship Range Rover and Land Rover Discovery.
According to Autocar, the EMA platform will be a simple structure of a ‘skateboard’ layout, built around a floor-mounted battery pack that will mate with 800-volt electrical architecture to support rapid charging; this could support charger outputs of up to 350 kW. Jaguar Land Rover said that EMA platform’s electric motors will be “the most torque-dense” in its class, the report added.
The EMA platform entered late-stage approval processes around one year ago, according to the magazine, and development vehicles for the next-generation, fully electric Velar are expected to commence road tests in the coming months.
At present, electrification for the facelifted current-generation Velar comes courtesy of the P400e powertrain variant, which combines a 300 PS/400 Nm 2.0 litre Ingenium turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine with a 143 PS/275 Nm electric motor for a combined output of 404 PS and 640 Nm. A 19.2 kWh lithium-ion battery offers around 64 km of EV range.
Elsewhere in the range, the current Velar facelift also gets a 250 PS/365 Nm 2.0 litre turbo petrol inline-four, as well as a mild-hybrid 3.0 litre turbo inline-six petrol in two states of tune, with 340 PS/480 Nm and 400 PS/550 Nm, respectively. Diesels for the range include a 204 PS/430 Nm four-cylinder D200 variant, and a 300 PS/650 Nm D300.
GALLERY: 2024 Range Rover Velar
