Kudos to the Land Rover Defender PHEV: less than 1 in 10

Lock yourself up. Land Rover combined the Defender, which was once a four-wheel drive farm vehicle with a smelly diesel or petrol engine. For the environment, the brand has a 300 hp four-cylinder turbo in conversation with a powerful electric motor and a 15.4 kWh battery, good for 40 kilometers of electricity on paper. You won’t be able to achieve that, but goodwill is also a calling card these days. Why not go electric right away? Not every Defender driver expects it, not all markets are ready for it. Furthermore, a battery pack that will keep such a land machine 600 kilometers from the desert to the Arctic Circle under all conditions has yet to be invented.

Come on, it’s rechargeable. Yes, the Defender PHEV is a plug-in hybrid. Usage by manufacturer: 1 in 38.5. What? With a weight of 2,693 kg and a height of 1 97 meters, the child understands: it is not on the highway. The data on the info display is confusing. At an average speed of 99 km/h, the Defender burned 9.8 l/100 km after the A6’s 117.6 km. But it is less than 1 in 10 and therefore it is good, because without the help of electricity it would be 1 in 5, congratulations. To pat yourself on the back is to praise a hurricane for not being a hurricane. The on-board computer, which monitors your eco-friendly driving style, is also pleased with it. I get a driving score of 90 percent, which means I did a good job. For additional saving advice, I can also hypocritically check the ‘environmental tips’ icon, which can only be consulted when Defender is not stopped. Then of course it is also more economical, hahahahaha.

Zoom in for all the details of the Land Rover Defender PHEVClick on the points for detailed informationMerlin Doomernik

The epitome of hypocrisy, a land vehicle with over 400 hp that is more Catholic than the Pope. Under the heading ‘influence on consumption’, the infotainment screen provides a fan-like overview of electrical systems that can negatively affect energy consumption: air conditioning, fan, rear window heating, steering wheel and heating, lights. The main damage remains by chance out of the picture: the apartment building itself.

Now at the end of December everything was going well with storms and rain. Then about 1 in 10 is quite a success for such a fragmented behemoth. Before you shout shame: consider the driver of the Defender. It’s a man and he wants 400 hp, that’s what he is a man. Such forces still come from 6 or 8 cylinders in his dreams. But the power is cheap and plug-ins due to the advantage of BPM and can calculate as an entrepreneur, so it will be Defender with four cylinders. During working hours he only drives in the city and in that thirty kilometer hell, the Guardian cools with electricity alone. Air quality will not be affected and thus urban customers are slowly paying off the environmental debt incurred by SUVs. I’d avoid Paris because of the impending parking charges for tough people, but a Defender driver on holiday had no business being there. He goes to Morocco or the Northern Cape with other advertising boys. Be a person, act cool, find payment centers.

Indiana Jones

Then you don’t want any interference from the active security systems. Unfortunately, the plague has also reached Defender Paradise. Warning sounds at speed are discreet, steering intervention is unacceptable. As if Spielberg has a shadow Indiana Jones and a driving instructor. While he is doing his best to win players who want to be cheerful and nostalgic of youth with the simplicity of the past. The blower, rear window heater, air conditioning and traction control can be operated with standard switches and I can set the temperature on the left and right with the lovely concrete rotary knobs. The space above my head is very large, where the sliding glass roof precedes an environmental knight-worthy ride behind the wheel. The combination of premium leather and rustic nuts, pressed into paper, works wonderfully in the door panels.

Photo: Merlijn Doomernik

I didn’t have the right tires for off-road driving. But when I came across a flooded dirt road on the way, I couldn’t resist the temptation. The PHEV slid into it as smoothly as a hot knife through a Holtkamp seven-yon pie. This is what all-terrain vehicles should be: hot, powerful machines. That’s why the Defender survived, when conventional cars turned en masse into lifeless plugging machines. I enjoyed being a car. He stands for everything that is fun, silly and childishly compelling. For a lot of money yes. But in the foreseeable future it will be quite cheap thanks to the depreciation of the sky. So let him be your last act of procrastination. Don’t worry about the technology, it’s rarely been driven faster than thirty.

To participate





Email the editor