The second generation Velar will hit the market next year, but the premiere will most likely take place this year. The other day, photo spies caught the new Velar testing in northern Sweden — it has every chance of becoming a sensation.
In 2017, news spread across the automotive media that Land Rover would for the first time have road models from the new Road Rover line on a common electric vehicle platform with future Jaguar models. Jaguar Land Rover (now simply JLR) never officially announced these plans, but insiders claimed that a new niche for Land Rover was indeed being prepared and that the first Road Rover would be released in late 2019.
In fact, by the end of 2019, Jaguar Land Rover fell into a deep financial crisis amid falling sales, and the world plunged into the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit the entire automotive industry hard. In 2020, a new, anti-crisis CEO came to Jaguar Land Rover from the Renault Group in the person of the Frenchman Thierry Bollore, who started a complete reorganization of the company. Bollore initiated the relaunch of the Jaguar brand with its subsequent transition to the luxury segment, and Land Rover eventually (after Bollore left) split into three separate brands — Range Rover, Defender and Discovery.
At Bollore's instigation, the EMA (Electrified Modular Architecture) platform, originally developed for the new Jaguars, was transferred to Land Rover, while the new luxury Jaguar models will receive their own JEA (Jaguar Electrified Architecture) platform. The EMA platform will underpin the new Range Rover Evoque, Range Rover Velar and Land Rover Discovery Sport, and we now see that the platform is more of a car than a crossover. Today, many Western media (for example, the Spanish magazine motor.es) published spy shots of the new Range Rover Velar — it turned out to be, in fact, the very first model from the Road Rover line that insiders whispered about in 2017.
There is no official information about the new product yet, but due to the collapse of Land Rover into three independent brands, the Road Rover line has lost its meaning (otherwise it would have been the fourth brand to emerge from Land Rover), so the road model will most likely be called the familiar name Velar. The decision is quite reasonable, because now Velar and Range Rover Sport partly compete with each other, it would be nice to separate these models. In the new generation, Velar will turn into an elongated and rather squat cross-wagon like the Volvo V90 Cross Country. The off-road capabilities of the new Velar will nevertheless be quite decent and will be combined with excellent dynamics — with this form factor, the new Velar may well become more successful than its predecessor.
Last year, the current Velar became the worst-selling Range Rover model : It sold 27,035 units worldwide, down 11.6% from 2022 sales, according to JLR. For comparison, let's say that sales of the flagship Range Rover SUV in 2023 amounted to 69,722 units. (+74.7% compared to the 2022 result). The transformation of Velar into a cross-station wagon can significantly expand the Range Rover audience — we are waiting for official announcements and premiere.
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