News : MY16 Range Rover Evoque set to be most efficient ever Land Rover

Land Rover's new MY16 Range Rover Evoque
Land Rover’s new MY16 Range Rover Evoque

Launched back in July 2011, the Range Rover Evoque has scored a major hit with customers and has become Land Rover’s best seller, with global sales totalling over 400,000 – that’s not surprising given that the model’s unique, if somewhat ‘Marmite’, styling turned the compact SUV market on its head at launch and helped the Evoque to garner over 165 international awards. That in turn has had further benefits creating 3000 new jobs at Land Rover’s Halewood plant – following that up was never going to be easy.

However, it looks as if Land Rover have and, as a result, created the most efficient production model ever.  The MY16 Evoque, which will debut at next week’s Geneva Motor Show, features a comprehensive range of new design features and technologies to reinforce its status as the market leader.

Range Rover Evoque’s cutting-edge exterior design has been further enhanced with a selection of carefully chosen revisions. These updates include a new front bumper, two new grille designs, all-LED headlamps and three new alloy wheel designs.  These changes will enhance Evoque’s unique design to a broad range of customers.

Interior changes include new seats and door casings, a new infotainment system, accessed via an eight-inch touchscreen, and the introduction of new colour and materials such as Lunar Ice, Vintage Tan and Dark Cherry (Autobiography only) complementing Evoque’s bold architectural forms.

Land Rover’s advanced new diesel engine also debuts. The new EU6-compliant four-cylinder Ingenium unit brings a class-leading combination of performance, refinement and efficiency. The cutting-edge engine, which is designed, engineered and manufactured in the UK, provides up to 180PS, fuel economy of up to 68mpg (4.2l/100km) and, according to Land Rover’s own estimate, CO2 emissions as low as 109g/km – that makes the class-leading Evoque the most efficient Land Rover ever produced.

Gerry McGovern, Land Rover Design Director and Chief Creative Officer, said: ‘The Range Rover Evoque first established and then dominated the luxury compact SUV sector generating worldwide acclaim and sales success. Our challenge has been to evolve the Evoque design without diluting its distinctive character.”

Jeremy Hicks, Jaguar Land Rover UK Managing Director, said: ‘The Evoque has proven to be an enormous success in the UK with sales of 62,000 since its launch back in 2011. Clever design, class leading residuals and competitive cost of ownership have all been contributors to its success.

‘The 2016 model year Evoque builds on this achievement with a new engine line up delivering outstanding CO2 emissions down to 109g/km and for the first time; an all-wheel drive version under 130g/km. This combined with intelligent and relevant technology will ensure that the Range Rover Evoque is an attractive proposition to both private and fleet and business customers.”

Land Rover has yet to confirm that a production version of the Evoque Convertible Concept, which was first shown at the Geneva Motor Show back in 2012, will be launched there this year but late-stage prototype models have been seen testing on public roads so watch this space…

 

18 Comments

  1. The outside changes really work (top marks), the new engines are producing phenomenal figures and the market will love it. Shame that there’s only so much that can be done with that depressing interior.

  2. Who’d have thought, a 68 mpg Range Rover? It does show after the long recession and the rise in fuel prices a few years ago, buyers still want Range Rovers but ones that are cheap to tax and deliver Fiat Panda like economy, but with similar refinement and performance to traditional Range Rovers. I think my idea of a dream car when I was 13 during another energy crisis, one that did 130 mph and delivered 60 mpg, has become a reality.

  3. When are Land Rover going to return to the more affordable end of the 4×4 market?

    The Freelander 1 established the market in the first place, but the FL2 and now Evoque and Discovery Sport are heading away from it as fast as their 190 bhp engines will take them.

  4. @ Leslie, why don’t they develop a modern version of the Defender, a smaller Land Rover with a 1.6 litre diesel engine, minimum level of trim, and aimed at people such as hill farmers and the armed forces who would appreciate a cheaper and less luxurious Land Rover/

    • Even as a Land Rover enthusiast, I’ve got to recognise that hill farmers and the military stopped buying Land Rovers in any worthwhile numbers years ago.
      If a hill farmer can afford to buy anything at all, it’ll be a quad, while the military tend to buy custom built vehicles with much greater protection against IED’s.
      Why compete in the basic and cheap end of the market when there will always be a dozen Asian manufacturer’s queuing up to sell something similar for much less?
      As someone that buys Land Rovers, I’ll miss the credibility given by seeing a brand new Defender parked up in the showroom alongside a new Freelander/Evoque etc. it’s exactly the opposite of the humiliation experienced when buying something deeply inferior, like an X3, then seeing it share showroom space with a 118d! Oh, the shame of it….

    • Even as a Land Rover enthusiast, I’ve got to recognise that hill farmers and the military stopped buying Land Rovers in any worthwhile numbers years ago.
      If a hill farmer can afford to buy anything at all, it’ll be a quad, while the military tend to buy custom built vehicles with much greater protection against IED’s.
      Why compete in the basic and cheap end of the market when there will always be a dozen Asian manufacturer’s queuing up to sell something similar for much less?
      Having As someone that buys Land Rovers, I’ll miss the credibility given by seeing a brand new Defender parked up in the showroom alongside a new Freelander/Evoque etc. it’s exactly the opposite of the humiliation experienced when buying something deeply inferior, like an X3, then seeing it share showroom space with a 118d! Oh, the shame of it….

  5. Well, when it comes to the cheaper end of the 4×4 market, I think Dacia have got it sewn up with the Duster. In my part of the world there’s loads of ’em!

    Incidentally, I know this is sad, but the press images shown (1/12, 2/12, 5/12)look a lot like an air brushed version of the road through Torcross / Slapton Sands, and the car parks there, down in Devon. Could this be true?
    I wish that the press departments would let us know where their shots are taken, so if they look like good driving roads we could go ourselves.

  6. However, an affordable Land Rover aimed at the rural, military and Defender loving market surely would have all Land Rover bases covered from the purists who love their Defenders to the WAGs in their Range Rovers. It’s not as if Land Rover has always been known as a luxury brand, until the Discovery was launched in 1989, it always meant a utilitarian four wheel drive aimed at farmers and armies.

    • Believe me, the only thing that a Defender purist would be interested in buying would be another Defender, just like their last one, but preferably a bit older and more “characterful” (broken/rusty/leaking etc, etc…)
      Expect anything new to take at least 15-20 years to be accepted by the faithful – that’s about how long even the Disco took to be accepted!

  7. Going off at a tangent from the Evoque theme, I believe there is a new Defender to be unveiled before the end of the year (it would not surprise me if there is a formal announcement on 30th April or in mid September). I am only guessing here, but I would expect the replacement model would look an awful lot like the current offering and will be offered with a wider choice of diesel AND petrol engines; the latter to enable the Defender replacement to go on sale in North America eighteen years after the current model was last sold there. North America still has a love affair with the Defender as evidenced by the high residual values of the examples sold there between 1994 and the end of 1997.

    This is one model where flights of flamboyance from egocentric designers using high-brow design rhetoric language to justify their interpretation will not likely be welcomed, let alone be seen as honouring the Land Rover brand and its core heritage model. Land Rover designers found just that with the DC100 concept, apparently, and ended up revisiting the ‘drawing board’ as the model had not been given a resounding ‘thumbs up’. That said, I am still nervous about what the new Defender will look like!

  8. Still struggling to understand why the new Freelander Sport has been hobbled at launch with the old Ford engine, whilst JLR have rushed to re-engineer the Evoque to take the Ingenium?

    • I agree, not the best policy for a new model (Discovery Sport) when its predecessor was still selling in healthy numbers and already established in all its intended markets. Quite why there was not a delay in the launch of Discovery Sport to the point where it would have reduced the necessity of using short-run use only components and wiring looms etc. for a soon to be redundant engine, is rather puzzling.

      After all, its not as if the Discovery Sport is made at the same assembly plant as other impending new product actions such as the Jaguar XE and Defender replacement, both which are assembled at Solihull.

      • I agree, it’s a bit odd.

        Maybe it’s LR revisiting their British Leyland heritage, and copying the launch of the Austin Maestro, which started with the R series and only got the S series after a year!

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