Range Rover’s first battery-electric SUV finally exists. A year behind schedule, priced at $179,150 including destination, and built at the same Solihull plant where the original rolled off the line in 1970. The 2027 Range Rover EV550 First Edition landed September 2 with the quiet confidence of a brand that hopes nobody remembers the delay.
JLR had pushed the launch back, citing “waning consumer interest for EVs.” That’s a convenient excuse from an automaker that also reported a 9.6% revenue slide in the first quarter of its fiscal 2027. Whether the delay was about demand or about engineering problems that needed more time, the result is the same: Range Rover enters the luxury EV arena well after rivals have staked their claims.
The hardware, at least on paper, looks serious. Two JLR-designed 260-kW motors produce 542 hp and 627 lb-ft of torque. An 118.5-kWh double-stacked battery pack runs at 800 volts and can split into two 400V packs for charging flexibility.
JLR claims a 10-to-80% DC fast charge in 22 minutes, or 137 miles added in 10 minutes. The WLTP range figure sits at 372 miles, though American EPA numbers will almost certainly tell a less flattering story.
Range Rover clearly wants buyers to know this is still a proper off-roader, not a lifted sedan with all-wheel drive. The company says its traction system responds in 50 milliseconds, roughly 100 times faster than its gasoline counterpart, and it can wade through 35.4 inches of water. Twin-chamber air suspension and a lower center of gravity promise better road manners than the combustion versions.
JLR claims more than 250,000 hours of virtual testing and enough real-world driving to circle the globe 38 times. That’s a lot of validation for a vehicle arriving into a segment where the Mercedes EQS SUV, BMW iX, and Rivian R1S have already taught early adopters what to expect from a big electric luxury truck.
The $179,150 price puts this squarely in a fight with the most expensive versions of those competitors, and above the base Rolls-Royce Spectre. JLR has promised a lower-priced variant will follow, though no timeline or target number has been disclosed. For now, the only Range Rover Electric you can buy is the one that costs nearly as much as a small house in several U.S. states.
U.S. models get a North American Charging Standard port and access to the Tesla Supercharger network, which is table stakes for any EV launching in America today. Launch markets include the U.K., Europe, and the U.S.
Managing director Martin Limpert called it “the result of a decade of considered engineering,” which is one way to describe a product that was supposed to arrive in 2025. JLR has simultaneously been hinting at alternative powertrains for its lineup, a hedge that suggests even the company making this EV isn’t entirely sure the market will absorb it at volume.
The factory workforce of 9,000 at Solihull has been retrained for EV production. Whether those workers will be building enough of these to justify the investment depends on something JLR admitted it was struggling with just a year ago: convincing luxury buyers that an electric Range Rover is worth choosing over the twin-turbo V8 they already love.
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