Land Rover Is Making Air-Cooled Electric Defenders Now

Land Rover will bring seven electric Defenders to the Geneva Motor Show. The research vehicles have an air-cooled drive system, and while the concept won't enter series production, the fleet will get dirty in special real world trials later this year.

Instead of the standard diesel engine and gearbox, the Defender EVs have a 94 horsepower electric motor connected to a 300-volt lithium-ion battery with a capacity of 27kWh. Since the engine is producing 243 lb-ft of torque throughout the whole rev-range, there’s no need for gear shifting and the transmission comprises a single-speed, 2.7:1 reduction gearbox. Range is more than 50 miles while low-speed off-roading. The battery can be fully charged by a 7kW fast charger in four hours, or in ten hours with a portable 3kW charger.

The powertrain is air-cooled to keep it simple and save weight, so the EV is only 220 pounds more than a basic Defender 110. Regenerative braking can produce 30kW of electricity, and the battery can be charged at a rate of up to twice its capacity of 54kW without reducing battery life. That means that up to 80 percent of the energy can be recovered, depending on conditions.

Would you take a heavier Defender if it meant you got zero emissions?

Photo credit: Land Rover

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Lightning GT

Electric / 400 PS / range: 150 - 225 miles (240 - 360 km) / 0 - 62 mph (100 km/h): 5,0 s / Vmax: 125 mph (200 km/h)

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Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Electric Drive (Platin blue chrom)

Electric / 750 PS / 738 ft/lb (1.000 Nm) / Range: 150 miles (250 km) / Charging time: 3 (with Wallbox) to 20 hours / AWD / 0 - 62 mph (100 km/h): 3,9 s / Vmax: 155 mph (250 km/h)

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Rinspeed iChange by Esoro

Electric / 204 PS / 0 - 62 mph (100 km/h): 4,2 s / Vmax: 137 mph (220 km/h)

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Fire up the... Vauxhall Ampera

THIS eco-warrior has an electric motor. It also packs a good old fashioned petrol engine. So the new Ampera's a hybrid, right?

Not quite, Vauxhall reckon. I'll apologise for getting so blatantly and boringly technical this soon into a review but it's important you know why the Ampera, this year's European Car of the Year, does what it does. A hybrid like, say, a Toyota Prius or a Honda Insight, is powered by a petrol engine which uses electric energy to help it run more efficiently.

The Vauxhall's contender (and its sister car, the Chevrolet Volt) is one you'll appreciate if you're a train buff - it's an electric vehicle which uses a petrol engine not to power its wheels, but to recharge its batteries. It is, in trainspotter speak, a petrol-electric. Not nodded off yet, then?

The upshot of all that electric wizardry is that the Ampera can do something no other electric car can. It can run on amps alone for 35 miles - more, Vauxhall reckons, than most of us regularly commute - so you can happily pop to the shops in it during the week not burning any fuel at all, plug it into the mains when you get back and sit back, smiling smugly because you're helping to mend the holes in the ozone layer. The clever bit, though, is that once you get past that it'll call on Esso's finest to keep going, meaning the 1.4 litre engine normally sat on the sub's bench is able to get you to Aunt Mabel's house in Aberdeen just like any other car could. Try doing that in your Nissan LEAF.

Normally, it's the price that unravels it all but while at £30,000 the Ampera costs about the same as the high end versions of Vauxhall's own Insignia it's the same sort of car - a big, generously equipped saloon, even if it's got a dashboard straight out of the 1980s. It's even nice to drive in a comfy, cosseting sort of way, with plenty of room upfront and in the back.

The Ampera isn't an electric car in the truest sense of the word but instead manages to be something much better; an eco-friendly express that makes sense. It's an environmentalist statement disguised as a really good car.

The Renault Twizy and Vauxhall Ampera are electric cars you might actually want to buy

IT was, to get the obvious puns out of the way, a shocking conclusion. Out of a host of brand new cars I've just driven the most impressive were the electric ones.

You'll already know that in the noble interests of Champion research I headed down to the motor industry's annual test drive day at the Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire last week - think of it as speed dating, just with cars rather than potential partners - and got to put a host of different motors through their paces, all of which you'll be able to read about in these pages over the coming weeks. Everything from the Jaguar XKR-S to the Fiat Panda's been given the Simister treatment.

Yet what surprised me most of all were two very different - but boldly brilliant - electric models. At the same event two years ago I drove a MINI of the volt-powered variety and concluded the world of electric cars needed to come on in leaps and bounds - and it has. The little Citroen C-Zero I drove last year nearly did it (ridiculous pricetag aside), but it's Renault's Twizy and Vauxhall's Ampera that I reckon are the game changers. Both of them pass the most crucial test of all. The “Would you actually buy one?” question.

Yes, I know the Ampera's got a petrol engine but it's emphatically not a hybrid - it is an electric car that occasionally uses a petrol engine to charge it up, which until they sort out the refuelling issues is the only way to make ‘leccy vehicles even mildly practical. Should you wake up tomorrow with a sudden urge to drive it to Inverness, there's nothing stopping you. Not even the price. It costs roughly the same as the Insignia, but that doesn't matter because it's roughly the same sort of car.

It's a hugely impressive bit of kit but it's not the first electric vehicle I've driven with a definite ‘want one' factor - that honour goes to Renault's faintly ridiculous Twizy. Think of it as a car and yes, it's rubbish, but think of it as the spiritual successor to all those bubble cars that bumbled around Britain in the Fifties and Sixties and it's spot on. It's a scooter for people who are scared of falling off. Oh, and as far as I know it's the only car this side of a Lamborghini Aventador which comes with scissor doors. It is, for want for of a better word, hilarious.

I don't think Renault, keen to be seen as an innovator of all things electric, were that happy though with my suggestion after my test drive. Wouldn't it be fun to fit it with a superbike engine?