2018 Land Rover Range Rover Velar ReviewEdmunds Test Drive
SPEAKER: Land Rovers invited us
to incredibly beautiful Norway to drive the new Land
Rover Range Rover Velar. Yes, that's the full name. And this vehicle
is going to slot in between the Evoque and the
Range Rover Sport in the Range Rover lineup. And before we drive
it, we're going to talk a little bit
about some of the exterior elements of the design,
and why they work, and what they're intended to do.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Now, it's lets go up to the
front end and talk about some of the styling elements up here. This is a limited edition first
edition variant of the Velar, so it has these
big 22 inch wheels. And some of the
detailing upfront like the bronze
work that's up here are nice little
details that reinforce the luxurious, premium
styling elements that Range Rover is known for. A couple of the elements
that most interesting are-- with what Range
Rover's done to shrink elements of the design, these
headlights, for example.
They have these
character lines-- these LED lights-- that kind of
evoke the Range Rover Evoque-- forgive the pun. But they've also shrunk
these lights quite a bit. And the effect-- what that does
to the rest of the vehicle, is it gives us this
elegance, I want to say. And It's a very attractive
thing when taken as a vehicle altogether.
Another design element
that stands out once you start noticing
it is this stripe down here at the bottom that
runs along the entire length of the vehicle. It's a nice design touch. And then as we get
towards the back, we have to point out
these flush door handles. This is a Range
Rover first-- we've seen a lot of other automakers
do something like this.
This has aerodynamic
benefits, but it also has a styling element
that helps make the entire side of the
vehicle look entirely flush. And as we get to the back,
we look at the tail lights. And these two were
also the smallest in the Range Rover lineup. And that reinforces
this idea of minimalism.
Overall, it's a very,
very attractive vehicle. And next up we're going
to see how it drives. [MUSIC PLAYING] We're driving a first
edition version of the Velar. And it's limited in
very few numbers.
It's a high content variant. Priced close to $90,000,
but the interior seems to represent
that price very nicely. It's most similar to
the Jaguar F-Pace, coming with the same engine
that vehicle's available with. It also shares a suspension
design and the platform underneath.
But as you can tell, it looks
extraordinarily different. And the way it drives feels
quite a bit different as well. The version we're
driving right now has air suspension that makes
the ride smooth soft and m where the F-Pace, for example,
doesn't have air suspension. It has adaptive dampers,
but the difference in terms of ride quality
is pretty pronounced.
We have the driving
mode set to auto. And that's letting us move
down this path at a fairly leisurely pace and pretty
comfortable in terms of ride as well. This Velar has the
supercharged V6, which generates adequate power. More than you'll need.
It's a little bit quieter,
a little more muted than the F-Pace. And that reinforces
the refinement that this car delivers and
seeks to deliver as well. You will also be able to
get the Velar with gasoline drinking two liter turbo
four and a diesel turbo two liter four as well. All of them use an eight
speed automatic transmission.
This will be able to tow around
5,500 pounds with the V6. And it has legit
off-road capability, as we found out by doing a
little bit of light off-roading earlier today. There's a lot of computer
controls with regard to that. It's a single speed
transfer case.
That active electronically
controlled rear differential. That's optional. And you basically use
the touchpad right here to set a preferred
driving method, whether that's mud, rut,
or snow, sand, or so on. And the systems
take control of lock up between the center
differential and the rear automatically.
In fact, there's a low
speed cruise control that you can activate,
set it at any speed-- we're in a car set to kilometers
per hour-- set it to any speed below 20 kilometers
per hour, and you can take your foot
off the gas pedal and it does all that work for
you when climbing through ruts and whatnot. It's a pretty
sophisticated system. Although, we'll
be curious to see, once we can test it
in off-road areas that we're used to, how it acts. [MUSIC PLAYING] Design is one of the big
differentiators between this and other SUVs,
especially the F-Pace.
It looks striking. It looks different. It has the traditional
Range Rover design cues. And inside, Land Rover's
paid careful attention to ensuring there is a very
tech focused interior lay out.
A lot of capacitive
switches, including those on the steering wheel as well. It looks very clean, especially
when the vehicle is off. And it gives a sensation of
technology and sophistication that suits the overall design
of Land Rovers very well. A couple of things I like
about this interior layout is the digital gauge cluster.
It's a nice, high
resolution, quick reacting, easy to reference display
that's multi-configurable. You can see your
navigation screen in it. You can move stuff around and
personalize it to your taste. And I like that it.
It has all the benefits
of a digital display, none of the downsides that
you typically associate. The bisected interface
here is the novel as well. It's interesting to
use at first glance, but we'll have to play
with it a bit more to see if it works just
as well in our daily use. The top level screen looks very
similar to the InControl Touch Pro system that Jaguar
has in the F-Pace.
And we generally like the
functionality of that system. We're told that Android Auto
and Apple CarPlay compatibility is coming and we're looking
forward to when that happens. The screen here
down at the bottom is multi-configurable as well. And the display itself
is a really neat idea.
Again, it's something
that's going to take a little bit to get
used to in terms of operation, because it is a fresh approach
to controlling climate controls, your stereo, your
seat heating and ventilation settings, and vehicle
settings as well. One of things I like
is that underneath it, there's a bit open space for
a small handbag or whatnot, or whatever devices or stuff
you want to hide back there. [MUSIC PLAYING] And as for comparison, it
gets kind of difficult. Because this vehicle splits,
in terms of exterior size, right between a compact luxury
SUV and a mid-sized luxury SUV.
At its base price, it
closer to the compact luxury SUVs, like the Audi Q5, BMW
X3, and Mercedes Benz GLC. But with the V6 and options
that come on that model, it gets closer to
the midsize vehicles. Now at the lower end,
that means it benefits from being a little bit bigger. It has a little bit more cargo
capacity and interior space.
And on the larger side,
it's a little bit smaller than those vehicles,
so the inverse applies. But from this first
impression, it's pretty clear that Land
Rover's made a very successful looking vehicle. There are a lot more videos
where this one came from. Subscribe now to see all
of Edmunds' latest reviews..
to incredibly beautiful Norway to drive the new Land
Rover Range Rover Velar. Yes, that's the full name. And this vehicle
is going to slot in between the Evoque and the
Range Rover Sport in the Range Rover lineup. And before we drive
it, we're going to talk a little bit
about some of the exterior elements of the design,
and why they work, and what they're intended to do.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Now, it's lets go up to the
front end and talk about some of the styling elements up here. This is a limited edition first
edition variant of the Velar, so it has these
big 22 inch wheels. And some of the
detailing upfront like the bronze
work that's up here are nice little
details that reinforce the luxurious, premium
styling elements that Range Rover is known for. A couple of the elements
that most interesting are-- with what Range
Rover's done to shrink elements of the design, these
headlights, for example.
They have these
character lines-- these LED lights-- that kind of
evoke the Range Rover Evoque-- forgive the pun. But they've also shrunk
these lights quite a bit. And the effect-- what that does
to the rest of the vehicle, is it gives us this
elegance, I want to say. And It's a very attractive
thing when taken as a vehicle altogether.
Another design element
that stands out once you start noticing
it is this stripe down here at the bottom that
runs along the entire length of the vehicle. It's a nice design touch. And then as we get
towards the back, we have to point out
these flush door handles. This is a Range
Rover first-- we've seen a lot of other automakers
do something like this.
This has aerodynamic
benefits, but it also has a styling element
that helps make the entire side of the
vehicle look entirely flush. And as we get to the back,
we look at the tail lights. And these two were
also the smallest in the Range Rover lineup. And that reinforces
this idea of minimalism.
Overall, it's a very,
very attractive vehicle. And next up we're going
to see how it drives. [MUSIC PLAYING] We're driving a first
edition version of the Velar. And it's limited in
very few numbers.
It's a high content variant. Priced close to $90,000,
but the interior seems to represent
that price very nicely. It's most similar to
the Jaguar F-Pace, coming with the same engine
that vehicle's available with. It also shares a suspension
design and the platform underneath.
But as you can tell, it looks
extraordinarily different. And the way it drives feels
quite a bit different as well. The version we're
driving right now has air suspension that makes
the ride smooth soft and m where the F-Pace, for example,
doesn't have air suspension. It has adaptive dampers,
but the difference in terms of ride quality
is pretty pronounced.
We have the driving
mode set to auto. And that's letting us move
down this path at a fairly leisurely pace and pretty
comfortable in terms of ride as well. This Velar has the
supercharged V6, which generates adequate power. More than you'll need.
It's a little bit quieter,
a little more muted than the F-Pace. And that reinforces
the refinement that this car delivers and
seeks to deliver as well. You will also be able to
get the Velar with gasoline drinking two liter turbo
four and a diesel turbo two liter four as well. All of them use an eight
speed automatic transmission.
This will be able to tow around
5,500 pounds with the V6. And it has legit
off-road capability, as we found out by doing a
little bit of light off-roading earlier today. There's a lot of computer
controls with regard to that. It's a single speed
transfer case.
That active electronically
controlled rear differential. That's optional. And you basically use
the touchpad right here to set a preferred
driving method, whether that's mud, rut,
or snow, sand, or so on. And the systems
take control of lock up between the center
differential and the rear automatically.
In fact, there's a low
speed cruise control that you can activate,
set it at any speed-- we're in a car set to kilometers
per hour-- set it to any speed below 20 kilometers
per hour, and you can take your foot
off the gas pedal and it does all that work for
you when climbing through ruts and whatnot. It's a pretty
sophisticated system. Although, we'll
be curious to see, once we can test it
in off-road areas that we're used to, how it acts. [MUSIC PLAYING] Design is one of the big
differentiators between this and other SUVs,
especially the F-Pace.
It looks striking. It looks different. It has the traditional
Range Rover design cues. And inside, Land Rover's
paid careful attention to ensuring there is a very
tech focused interior lay out.
A lot of capacitive
switches, including those on the steering wheel as well. It looks very clean, especially
when the vehicle is off. And it gives a sensation of
technology and sophistication that suits the overall design
of Land Rovers very well. A couple of things I like
about this interior layout is the digital gauge cluster.
It's a nice, high
resolution, quick reacting, easy to reference display
that's multi-configurable. You can see your
navigation screen in it. You can move stuff around and
personalize it to your taste. And I like that it.
It has all the benefits
of a digital display, none of the downsides that
you typically associate. The bisected interface
here is the novel as well. It's interesting to
use at first glance, but we'll have to play
with it a bit more to see if it works just
as well in our daily use. The top level screen looks very
similar to the InControl Touch Pro system that Jaguar
has in the F-Pace.
And we generally like the
functionality of that system. We're told that Android Auto
and Apple CarPlay compatibility is coming and we're looking
forward to when that happens. The screen here
down at the bottom is multi-configurable as well. And the display itself
is a really neat idea.
Again, it's something
that's going to take a little bit to get
used to in terms of operation, because it is a fresh approach
to controlling climate controls, your stereo, your
seat heating and ventilation settings, and vehicle
settings as well. One of things I like
is that underneath it, there's a bit open space for
a small handbag or whatnot, or whatever devices or stuff
you want to hide back there. [MUSIC PLAYING] And as for comparison, it
gets kind of difficult. Because this vehicle splits,
in terms of exterior size, right between a compact luxury
SUV and a mid-sized luxury SUV.
At its base price, it
closer to the compact luxury SUVs, like the Audi Q5, BMW
X3, and Mercedes Benz GLC. But with the V6 and options
that come on that model, it gets closer to
the midsize vehicles. Now at the lower end,
that means it benefits from being a little bit bigger. It has a little bit more cargo
capacity and interior space.
And on the larger side,
it's a little bit smaller than those vehicles,
so the inverse applies. But from this first
impression, it's pretty clear that Land
Rover's made a very successful looking vehicle. There are a lot more videos
where this one came from. Subscribe now to see all
of Edmunds' latest reviews..
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