Range Rovers are expensive and luxurious vehicles, but do they have the ability to drive themselves?
Range Rovers can’t drive themselves. However, in 2018, a special edition Range Rover was built that could drive itself autonomously, but this wasn’t made a feature on their road vehicles. Many Range Rovers do however come with a park assist feature, which allows the vehicle to maneuver itself when parking for you.
Read on to learn more about Range Rover, and the abundance of features they come with.
The Range of Range Rovers
Like many other luxury car brands, you can purchase a Range Rover with a wealth of features. They come in a wide variety of trim styles and can be adapted or built to order.
Of course, the higher-spec models will run up a considerable cost, edging into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, at this end the features you’ll get with your Range Rover will quite simply be staggering to behold.
The first-ever Range Rover was released way back in 1970 and quickly became a staple for Land Rover, the parent company. The organization itself boasts a fairly illustrious history.
They produced their first-ever car, conveniently named the Land Rover, in 1947. Many years later, in 1978, it became its own, independent company.
In the nineties, it was acquired by BMW, one of the most prestigious names in motoring. Then, it was sold to Ford, before ultimately ending up as part of Tata Motors, in 2008.
As of 2019, Land Rover – now known as Jaguar Land Rover – was worth an estimated six billion dollars.
So, it makes sense that the Range Rover would be a force to contend with. It started off life as a stalwart powerhouse, built for driving off-road, and primarily across farmland.
However, within a couple of decades, Range Rover started transitioning more towards the luxury SUV market. Land Rover started equipping them with the finest materials, and the latest technology, in an attempt to corner the market.
In 2017, this reached a high point, with a Range Rover being made available for sale at more than two hundred thousand dollars.
This variant, the Range Rover SVAutobiography, came equipped with so many luxurious extras that it made consumers’ heads spin. It boasted TV screens, a mini-fridge, an AI ‘butler’, and massage chairs.
Not only that, but it was fitted with an immensely powerful 5.0-liter V8 engine, a six-thousand dollar clock, and 1.2 meters of legroom for rear passengers.
End of the Range
There are many luxury cars out there in the world that offer entry-level counterparts. After all, a lot of these companies want to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.
Jaguar Land Rover is one of these companies. They boast a wide variety of Range Rovers, but they’re not all as dramatically expensive as you’d think.
For example, the lowest-spec Range Rover available in 2020 was the Discovery Sport. This particular vehicle started brand new at around thirty-eight thousand dollars.
Next was the Evoque, at around forty thousand dollars, then the Discovery, at fifty thousand. They were followed closely by the Velar, at fifty-six thousand, and the Sport, coming in at seventy thousand dollars.
There was something for everyone’s budget. One of the key things about buying these vehicles brand new, is that you can often choose what you want to equip them with.
While you can’t buy a Range Rover that drives itself, a lot of them can be outfitted with park assist.
This is an intuitive and innovative feature that aids people in parking these enormous vehicles. You simply activate the feature when near a parking space, and the car does all the heavy lifting.
It’s worth paying the premium to avoid having a struggle every time you park your massive Range Rover.
Smarter, Not Faster
In 2018, Jaguar Land Rover showed that they were trying to be at the pinnacle of motor engineering. They had built prototypes of cars that could self-learn or could be controlled by a remote app.
Their goal was to create a truly autonomous vehicle, that would learn the road, the conditions, and the environment. They also envisioned a car that could be piloted almost entirely through a mobile app.
So, if your dream is to become like Batman and have a remote-responsive car, Range Rover has you covered. Coincidentally, you’ll also need to have Batman’s wealth to be able to afford one.