Top 5 Reviews and Videos of the Week: 2020 Range Rover Sport PHEV Pulls the Plug on Telluride
Land Rover’s Range Rover Sport comes in a plug-in hybrid version for 2020, but does so with a “half-baked” powertrain and a flawed multimedia system (perhaps making some of us wish it hadn’t come at all). Despite its imperfections, the 2020 Range Rover Sport PHEV has nestled into first place on our list of this week’s top five reviews, while the once-champion Kia Telluride SUV falls further down the ranks.
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The Range Rover Sport PHEV has a 296-horsepower, turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine with a 141-hp electric motor housed in the eight-speed automatic transmission, putting out a combined 472 pounds-feet of torque — all of which sounds great on paper, and only on paper, Cars.com reviewer Aaron Bragman says.
“The big problem is the smoothness of operation of these systems,” Bragman writes. “The gas engine kicks on sometimes but not others, and it’s far from seamless when it does. The four-cylinder Ingenium engine shakes and vibrates like a diesel instead of a turbocharged gasoline engine. Running idle at a stoplight, it shakes the whole SUV.”
And the acceleration is inconsistent, Bragman adds. Depending on the mode the Range Rover decides it needs to be in, the powertrain behaves differently. Even if you push the gas pedal the same way twice in a row, sometimes it’ll result in a boost, and other times you’ll be left crawling away from the stoplight.
What else went wrong with the 2020 Range Rover Sport PHEV? Bragman continues the laundry list in his review, which you can check out via the link below.
In videos this week, our drag-strip test of the 2019 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat races into the top slot. Behind that is our First Drive of the 2020 Hyundai Palisade at No. 2 and our First Look at the refreshed 2020 Toyota Tundra at No. 3. Our ever-popular 2019 Compact SUV Challenge rolls into fourth place. Bringing up the rear at No. 5 is our drag-strip challenge in which the 2019 Dodge Challenger R/T Scat Pack and a 2018 Ford Mustang GT battle it out for the fastest quarter-mile.
Here are the top five reviews and videos of the week:
Top 5 Reviews
1. 2020 Land Rover Range Rover Sport PHEV Review: Driving Issues Impossible to Overlook
2. 2019 Mazda CX-9 Review: A Sporty Outlier
3. 2019 Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid Review: More Efficient, Less Useful
4. 2020 Kia Telluride Review: The New Big SUV Benchmark
5. 2019 Volkswagen Tiguan Review: All-Around Greatness
Top 5 Videos
1. 2019 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye: Drag-Strip Tested
2. 2020 Hyundai Palisade: First Drive
3. 2020 Toyota Tundra, Tundra TRD: First Look
5. Dodge Challenger R/T Scat Pack 1320 Vs. Ford Mustang GT
Cars.com’s Editorial department is your source for automotive news and reviews. In line with Cars.com’s long-standing ethics policy, editors and reviewers don’t accept gifts or free trips from automakers. The Editorial department is independent of Cars.com’s advertising, sales and sponsored content departments.
