Land Rover to unveil Electric Defender

Land Rover has announced that seven new electric models of the legendary off roader, the Defender have been produced as research vehicles. While there are no plans to put the electric SUV into series production, the British manufacturer will use the vehicles in real world tests later in 2013. It will be showcased at the Geneva Motor Show next month. 

The electric SUV uses a 96PS, 330Nm electric motor powered by a 300-volt 27kWh good enough for a range of more than 50 miles (80km). LR also mentions that under low-speed off road conditions, the SUV can run for up to eight hours before needing a recharge. The full recharge time varies between four hours (on a 7kW charger) and 10 hours (on a portable 3kW charger). Transmission duty's taken care of by a single speed gearbox, which sends power to all four wheels via the same 4wd (with differential lock) system as found in a standard Defender. It weighs around 100kg more than the base Defender 110 and while LR has made sure to save as much weight as possible, the brainy engineers haven't forgotten to incorporate energy saving wizardry like regenerative braking and use of air-cooling instead of a water-cooling system. 

This zero-emission SUV won't let you down when it goes off the road but since LR has no plans of producing the car at the moment, you'll have to wait for sometime before your dream of owning a green SUV realizes.