Is the Range Rover Sport Autobiography PHEV a Good Luxury SUV?
- With lush and comfortable seating for five, an effortlessly powerful plug-in hybrid powertrain, more than 50 miles of silent all-electric range and pillowy ride comfort, the 2025 Land Rover Range Rover Sport lives up to its reputation as one of the best of the best luxury SUVs.
How Does the Range Rover Sport Autobiography PHEV Compare With Other Luxury SUVs?
- Despite the “Sport” in its name, the Range Rover Sport is not as sharp or as focused on performance as the Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid or BMW XM. On top of that, the Range Rover’s reliance on its 13.1-inch touchscreen display to control vehicle functions is more reminiscent of Tesla than of typical British luxury. All that said, nothing surpasses the Range Rover Sport’s ride or interior comfort.
Despite its relatively humble beginnings, the Land Rover Range Rover is now synonymous with luxury, and the third-generation Range Rover Sport aims to deliver a bit of sporty flair while maintaining the opulence of its bigger-bodied sibling.
The 2025 Range Rover Sport offers shoppers a wealth of customization options, including several powertrains available in various trim levels. For this review, I drove a plug-in hybrid Autobiography — the most luxurious Range Rover Sport trim — with an as-tested price of $128,865 (all prices include destination). That’s a lot of money no matter how you slice it, but it sounds reasonable compared with the high-performance SV Edition Two, which starts at $182,325.
Related: 2024 Land Rover Range Rover Sport SV Edition Two: The One You Can Buy
What I found in the Autobiography was something very close to the ideal luxury vehicle — and one of the best PHEVs on the market. Not everything in the 2025 Range Rover Sport is roses, however, so read on.
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How Much Does the 2025 Range Rover Sport Cost?
- SE: $85,325
- Dynamic SE:Â $92,425
- Autobiography:Â $120,325
- SV Edition Two:Â $182,325
Prices vary considerably from trim to trim, but one thing is clear: The Range Rover Sport is not cheap — and that’s before you add any options. What’s interesting about Land Rover’s pricing structure, however, is the pedestal it places the twin-turbo V-8 on. At the Dynamic SE level, a twin-turbocharged inline-six-cylinder engine is standard, and while it costs an extra $4,300 to get the 454-horsepower PHEV powertrain, it’ll be another $18,900 to get the 523-hp V-8. In the Autobiography, meanwhile, the 543-hp PHEV is $4,700 less than the V-8 despite having 19 more ponies. Perhaps that’s because the V-8 is actually quicker, likely because of another significant factor.
How Much Does the 2025 Range Rover Sport Weigh?
- SE: 5,090 pounds
- Dynamic SE, 3.0-liter six-cylinder: 5,090
- Dynamic SE, V-8: 5,020
- Dynamic SE, PHEV: 5,860
- Autobiography, V-8: 5,020
- Autobiography, PHEV: 6,025
- SV Edition Two: 5,475
The Range Rover Sport is hefty no matter which trim or powertrain you choose, but the Autobiography PHEV we drove tipped the scales at over three tons. The weight is noticeable when you’re driving, giving the SUV an incredibly solid feeling.
How Does the 2025 Range Rover Sport Drive?
While the PHEV’s heft is noticeable, the weight of the battery pack helps keep its center of gravity relatively low. And even with three-plus tons of weight, the Autobiography PHEV’s 543 hp and 590 pounds-feet of torque is more than enough to make it feel quick. Land Rover quotes its 0-60 mph time at 4.7 seconds, which certainly feels accurate. What it never really feels like, though, is a sports car. Power delivery is smooth, not aggressive. It’s the kind of vehicle that feels effortless to drive — so effortless you’ll need to be careful not to accidentally exceed the speed limit.
There’s also minimal sportiness in the rest of the driving experience, despite the “Sport” in this SUV’s name. Instead, the adaptive air suspension produces a ride that one of our editors compared to a Maybach — and the comparison is apt. Even the Autobiography’s optional 23-inch wheels and tires don’t ruin the ride comfort; they produce firm impacts but don’t upset occupants. If your goal is a cushy ride, though, I’d suggest skipping the 23-inch wheels — and the standard 22-inch wheels — and choosing the 21s instead; while it’s weird to call 21-inch wheels “small,” smaller wheels usually offer better ride comfort.
The steering is communicative, but not sharp like a Cayenne’s, and braking feel is more vague than I’d like from a canyon carver. Even so, both are acceptable for everyday use. Available all-wheel steering compensates for the Range Rover Sport’s bulkiness in tight parking lots and makes highway lane changes quick and easy.
How Much All-Electric Range Does the 2025 Range Rover Sport Autobiography PHEV Have?
- Up to 53 miles of EPA-estimated all-electric range
By opting for the plug-in powertrain, buyers increase the luxuriousness of the Range Rover Sport experience. With over 50 miles of all-electric range, including at highway speeds, owners get a serene and nearly silent driving experience, with enough range to potentially cover both directions of a daily commute without charging in between. And when the gas engine does kick in, the hybrid system’s transition between the inline-six-cylinder gas engine and electric power is seamless. If you’re not looking at the tachometer, you may not even know the gas engine is running. When operating in hybrid mode, the Range Rover Sport Autobiography PHEV gets an EPA-estimated 21 mpg combined.
Charging is straightforward, and it only takes about five hours on a Level 2 home charger to bring the battery from empty to 100% (when charging at its maximum rate of 7 kilowatts). Somewhat confusingly, the PHEV also offers DC fast charging at speeds up to 43 kW; owners with hybrids are unlikely to seek out DC fast chargers given they have a gas engine for extended trips — and even with fast-charging, it will still take close to an hour to recharge the 31.8-kilowatt-hour battery from 0% to 80%. Given the choice between fast-charging and filling up, I have a feeling most owners will choose to save time and just stop for gas.
How Nice Is the 2025 Range Rover Sport’s Interior?
With what feels like well-stuffed lounge chairs for front seats, the Range Rover Sport Autobiography coddles occupants up front, and its semi-aniline leather upholstery looks and feels fantastic. The same is true in the backseat, which has a power-recline feature for when your passengers really need to relax.
The glaring issues with the interior, and what keep me from calling the Autobiography a perfect luxury vehicle, are the center console and touchscreen. The piano-black console is a genuine fingerprint magnet, and it lacks useful storage spaces of any kind. The cooler compartment is nice to have but very small, and other small-item storage is hard to find. And while the 13.1-inch touchscreen works well and is fairly intuitive, it contains all the controls for the audio and climate systems, and it can be distracting to operate while driving.
The touchscreen does provide haptic feedback and requires a meaningful finger press to perform functions, making it harder to adjust something you didn’t intend to, but that changes when using Apple CarPlay. In that application, the screen reverts to a more traditional, feedback-less touchscreen. Switching between the native functions and smartphone mirroring during my time driving the Range Rover Sport inevitably resulted in either over- or under-enthusiastic “button” presses, which was annoying. Adding haptic feedback to CarPlay may be an Apple problem, not a Land Rover one, but I wish whoever can fix it would do so sooner rather than later.
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Is the 2025 Range Rover Sport Autobiography PHEV Worth Its Price?
It’s rare for me to feel like a six-figure car is actually worth its astronomical price, but the Range Rover Sport PHEV offers such an excellent driving experience and outstanding luxury that, in this case, it’s worth nearly every penny. If a car could dream, this is what every PHEV would dream of being. Lots of folks may dream of owning a Range Rover someday, but if you’re lucky enough to afford one now, you probably won’t be disappointed with this one.
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