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Video: 2022 Land Rover Range Rover: Up Close
By Cars.com Editors
November 22, 2021About the video
The Land Rover Range Rover was fully redesigned for the 2022 model year and we spent some quality time with it at the 2021 Los Angeles Auto Show. Watch the video to see what's changed with the flagship SUV.
Transcript
(slow upbeat music) Now, I wouldn't blame you if you confuse the Land Rover Range Rover with the few other Range Rover Esque models. Maybe the Range Rover Sport, the Range Rover Velar, the Range Rover Evoque even.
Now, this is the original one that started it all. The big dog Range Rover, no suffix. And it goes head to head with vehicles like the Cadillac Escalade, the Lexus LX, the Lincoln Navigator and the Mercedes-Benz GLS class. There's just one hitch, not a trailer hitch. It's that those other SUV's have offered a third row seat. Something the Range Rover hasn't dabbled in until now. It's been fully redesigned for the 2022 model year with a third row available for the first time, as well as a whole lot more. Now like before, the Range Rover comes with a regular wheelbase and an extended wheelbase. What we have here at the auto show in front of us is the extended wheelbase version. The easiest way to tell this generation apart from the previous generation is gonna come in back. There's this very bold kind of rectangular shape going on here between this strip across where Range Rover is emblazoned along the lift gate, as well as this kind of lower strip here, which frames it. This can come in various colors, Range Rover set, Land Rover set, excuse me, this is gonna always be black. And so actually, if you get black paint here, as well as a black lower cover, color, the entire tail can be black. That includes these tail lights, which when they turn off the LEDs actually dim out and then this entire panel here also black. So kind of a cool look there. Definitely very bold. The first time Land Rover says, it's tried something like that. I kinda dig it. You get around the side, still very similar kinda Range Rover styling cues, very upright here. A lot of glass. The roof line stays very high. Land Rover says it tapers a little bit lower overall than the previous generation of the Range Rover. But still, again, a very upright stature here versus some of the other Land Rover SUV's out there, which kind of taper a little bit closer together as you get kind of from the belt line to where the roof line ends. Check out some of these details here. This entire door panel here. There's kind of upper and lower areas, but this is actually beveled into the same piece of sheet metal. Kinda ends abruptly right here. Kind of a cool little theme here. And you come up here. This is actually the D pillar, but it's behind this piece of glass. So it looks completely formed underneath the glass so that the glass kinda moves entirely along the side of the vehicle. And get around the front here, changes are a little bit more subtle. The headlights continue to sort of fan out here along the hood line, something they did before. And you still get kind of, this sort of trapezoidal shape here for the grill. Below here, the lower part of the grill, the lower grill here along the bumper actually has much more of a rectangular opening. And if you go back to the previous generation of Range Rover, it kinda fanned up a little bit up top there. Now I know we're getting into the weeds here, but so are the Range Rover. Quite a few weeds actually. A system called Integrated Chassis Control with Dynamic Response Pro can actually decouple both sides of the stabilizer bar to provide maximum wheel articulation at both axles. It can also basically function as an active roll stabilization system, essentially active stabilizer bars to mitigate body lean on corners. Now the previous generation did also offer active stabilizer bars. Land Rover says they're much more responsive now, and they can shift torque a lot more within the stabilizer bar to provide a better response to corners. There's also a lot of other technology here. Drive modes, inside include sand, mud, rock, crawl, even a waiting mode and there's new rear wheel steering that can trim the turning circle on the new Range Rover in the regular wheelbase version I should say, down to 36 feet, that's on par with a Toyota Rav4. It's 11% less turning circle than the previous generation Range Rover. For now, the Range Rover will offer two available engines, both turbo-charged with six or eight cylinders respectively. There's also going to be a plug-in hybrid version, similar to the plug-in hybrid Range Rover before, but it's gonna have considerably longer range. If Land Rover's estimates pan out of the actual EPA ratings, plus even more power so good news there. And then finally in 2024, expect a fully electric version of the Range Rover to come as well. Back to the gasoline model. Now the top engine, a turbocharged V8 has a little bit less power than the outgoing Range Rover's supercharged V8, but it has considerably more torque Land Rover says. And that all helps contribute toward a considerably quicker zero to 60 time versus its predecessor. Yet more evidence that horsepower is just one aspect of total performance. Now the prior generation Range Rover got a big refresh in the 2018 model year. You may remember that really made the interior more minimalistic. You had two kinda tenant screens here for the multimedia and the climate controls. With this redesign, the minimalism certainly still lives on. There's not a whole lot of kind of physical buttons and controls around here though. I am glad to see that Land Rover ditched kind of the two screen display for a single screen up here, which is now bigger, it's 13.1 inches. And below, you don't get another silly screen for the climate controls. There's some physical dials here and a little bit more intuitive of a setup. Now, there still are plenty of kinda touch controls, which we're not really fans of, in any car across the industry. Now, they are on the steering wheel and for some of these climate functions, but it's nice to see Land Rover didn't go completely off the deep end. You still get things like a physical volume knob, physical knobs here for the temperature and so on and so forth. Now in terms of overall cabin quality, in a Range Rover, you'd expect it to just be top-notch and Land Rover doesn't disappoint. This car here at the auto show just has a ton of opulence going on. This is the SV model, the top version of the Range Rover. One of the top versions I should say. And all around you, there's just stitched soft touch coverings to just about everything. Even down to obscure areas like in the footwells. The seats sit up right, they're supremely comfortable here. There's a lot of little details. Things like ceramic edging around some of these knobs here, there's laser etched wood trim, which has kind of a cool, a pretty complicated pattern as you're, toward the front of the car, that kind of actually gets a little simpler and kind of streamlines as you come toward the rear. Just lots of interesting details like that. Let's go to the backseat. The opulence continues to the second row of the Range Rover, including materials and features. If you get a car like this one here at the auto show, this is a four seat model actually with two separated seats in the second row. There's no third row in this long wheelbase edition. And that affords a ton of features here. Some obviously will be available and not standard. You get dual screens here. 11.4 inches up from 10 inches in the previous generation Range Rover. There's power adjustable seats with ottomans that come out here for both sides. You get things like an adjustable table here that pops up. It can actually come back a little bit. There's a little bit of storage under and the two sides can actually fan out. Land Rover says that's big enough to fit a laptop computer. It can pivot to either side, if you want. Kind of cool there. Not just that, but other things are power operated too. You get things like cup holders here. Again, this opens, powers open, power shut. And then finally if you, you know, want a cold one, there's a door for the fridge. Powers down and back up. Now, as far as third rows go, it's worth noting that the Navigator has an exceptionally large third row. The GLS and the Escalade have workable third rows in their own right. And so how does the Range Rover really stack up? Well, Land Rover says, this is the largest third row it's ever created in any of its SUV's. And I got to say, it's okay. Not up there with Navigator, maybe not even up with GLS and Escalade, but close. Kind of in the same territory as sort of those second tier ones here. I'm six feet tall, head room's okay. Leg room is workable with the seat kind of in its default position here. That's not all the way back for the second row. You can kind of move it forward or back with controls here from the third row if you want. But overall, not terrible and exceptionally high quality materials here. Even in luxury vehicles, you usually get really cheap stuff in the way back seats. Nice to see Land Rover keeps things up. Now in back, there's an available cargo area partition that can also function as a back rest complete with deployable cushions that go on top of it. That would give you sort of this rear facing tailgate seat you see here. And that's gonna be an expensive seat indeed. Land Rover says the new Range Rover will start around $105,000 including destination. That's at more than $12,000 over the prior generation Range Rover, which to be fair, got up over $200,000 if you checked all the boxes. We have no doubt that the new generation of Range Rover will do the same thing, which means it could do battle with the likes of the Bentley Bentayga, the Aston Martin DBX. Now, if you have this sort of coin to be cross shopping those vehicles or a different kind of coin, maybe just to be shopping a Range Rover against a well optioned Escalade or Navigator, well, Land Rover has something for you. And it all goes on sale in the spring of 2022.
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