The updated Range Rover Velar has some work to do to win over new customers

SINGAPORE

If you haven’t been paying close attention to the Range Rovers, the brand can be a pretty confusing thing, especially moving ahead where Jaguar Land Rover has revealed its intention to reorganise itself into four subbrands.

You see, a Range Rover is technically an upscale Land Rover, in a similar way that a Lexus is a luxury Toyota. But most Range Rovers share no common chassis components with their Land Rover relatives, and the Range Rover Velar seen here is essentially a smaller relation to the big Range Rover Sport.

The Velar seats only five occupants, and in local Singaporean specification, is powered by a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine with 250 horsepower.

However this isn’t a totally new car, and is really just an update of the same Velar that was launched back in 2017. It’s also a very young nameplate, officially still in its first generation. Besides ditching the bigger 3.0-litre engine of old for a more efficient one with just two-thirds the engine capacity, it also gets redesigned exterior parts in the form of front and rear bumpers with slimmer light housings. Inside the car, a new Pivi Pro software system with an 11.4-inch centre screen brings the Velar right up to date with its contemporaries.

Well, in person, it’s fair to say that one Range Rover looks very much like another because their design language is so uniformly coherent. But unlike the gigantic ‘standard’ Range Rover, the Velar is a lot more manageable in that it’s just medium sized and not super large.

In car-speak, it’s just that bit bigger than a BMW X3 but shorter than a BMW X5.

The real experience of the Velar is from inside the cabin and the Pivi Pro control system makes it all tidy with its big flat screen surface. The screen is just high enough so that you can operate it without taking your eyes off the road, but the car also isn’t all Tesla Model 3 in that there are still visible buttons on the steering wheel spokes. Interior space is great for all occupants, and the car retains that certain Range Rover feel, where the whole ambience is distinct from that of other continental luxury cars.

It’s a pretty heavy car so the engine’s got quite a lot of work to do. While there are petrol-electric hybrid variants available in other markets, Singapore gets the petrol-only variant for now. The turbocharged four-cylinder engine is up to the task however, being punchy when in Sport mode and nicely sedate in the default Comfort drive mode. 

Still, perhaps the most polarising aspect of the car is just how laid-back it is in the standard drive mode. It wafts along like on a bed of pillows, with a disconcertingly detached feel from the road and very little in the way of feedback through the steering. The best way to describe it is that it’s very ‘American’, in that way that large cars built for sale in the USA tend to feel very wafty as that seems to be the standard for long distance driving in that part of the world.

Sport mode turns the car’s character around, with the steering and ride instantly becoming much more communicative and direct. The engine will rev freely, but at the upper end of the range does sound like a big fan spinning at its limits, but in urban traffic it does everything you expect of it with minimal fuss.

It’s quiet at highway speeds too, but with a fuel economy figure hovering around 10.5l/100km it’s not the most economical of cars. By way of extremes, we returned just 5.0l/100km in the Skoda Octavia with its little 1.0-litre turbo engine. Still, you do need to remember that the Velar is completely off-road capable with Land Rover’s Terrain Response all-wheel drive system that ensures all four wheels dig in when then going gets rough. 

Luxury SUVs in this size segment make for a competitive brew. The base model Range Rover Velar starts from just under S$300k without COE, and the Dynamic HSE variant driven here is priced at S$361,888 without COE. This puts the Velar slightly above Mercedes-Benz GLC territory, but like everything else, each brand has its own share of loyal customers. Can the new Velar win over any new ones? In a practical sense, perhaps not many, as besides the new entertainment system the drivetrain is pretty bog-standard and the lack of true electrification does hamper its marketing angles.

Still, if you’re looking for a new medium luxury SUV that is super comfortable and can actually go offroad with confidence, as long as you fit it with the right tyres, you should give the Velar a look anyway. 

Range Rover Velar Dynamic HSE

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