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Reports out of the UK this week point to development of a pure-electric version of the Land Rover Defender, most likely in the rugged off-roader’s next generation.
According to Autocar, despite a clear appetite within Land Rover for an electric Defender in the current-gen vehicle, Jaguar Land Rover’s Chief Commercial Officer Lennard Hoornik has confirmed “potentially insurmountable packaging difficulties with the current car”.
Unlike the 30-year run of the previous iteration of the Defender, an all-new version is set to replace the current car (introduced in 2020) by the end of the decade. And it’s then that a zero-tailpipe emissions variant is most likely to emerge.
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Mr Hoornik told Autocar, “Electrifying the current ‘L663’ car, on its D7x platform, is not what we want.
“The L663 is brilliant at what it does and we do have a [four-cylinder] plug-in hybrid version already, but it’s not easy to find the extra space you need within that chassis for batteries, given the axle packaging and capability that it needs,” he said.
In fact, JLR insiders have confirmed even a move to the bigger-battery, six-cylinder plug-in hybrid powertrain, as used in Range Rover and Range Rover Sport variants, isn’t a realistic option in the Defender’s current form.
“We have said that we will make an electric production model for each of our new brands [Range Rover, Defender, Discovery and Jaguar] and remain committed to that,” Mr Hoornik added.
“But finding the space on the current Defender platform is really, really hard, so we will need to use something different.”
Although it’s not 100 per cent clear whether that means EV development with a new-generation Defender or a second model on a dedicated, pure-electric platform, his comments make the former scenario more likely.
“The EV will need to come at quite a significant step in the evolution of the Defender,” he said.
Rumours of a smaller, pure-electric Land Rover Defender Sport have also been swirling for the last 18 months, but it’s worth noting Ineos Automotive has delayed the release of its electric Fusilier SUV, placing the blame primarily on uncertainty around the future of electric car demand.
The electric car sibling to the Ineos Grenadier - itself essentially a continuation of the original Land Rover Defender design - was expected to debut in 2026, but could now be as late as 2028.
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