Off-road, Land Rover always provides decent clearance and articulation versus rivals, and some handy off-road traction electronics to keep you trucking along. In the inside, Range Rover does a fine modern-lux environment. It’s a theme of strong minimal rectilinear lines. Cladding the surfaces are smart plush leather options with good colour choices. If you don’t care to park your backside on that of a deceased bovine then go for one of the fabric options. Some of those involve wool, and some are characterised as vegan, which is a nice way of saying petroleum-based. Albeit partly recycled from drink bottles. The infotainment pixels look good and mostly work well. From mid trim level upwards, it becomes JLR’s Touch Pro Duo system, with two central screens stacked one above the other. The lower one normally runs climate control. Swipe across and it covers car configurating – the comfort/eco/sport modes and terrain response. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are in the system now, which was a notable omission on JLR machinery up to now. It’s well integrated: you can swipe the phone’s music track display down onto the lower screen so you can still use the upper one for the built-in navigation. Two rotate-and-push knobs set into the lower screen add a welcome tactile aspect. Their function is context-dependent, so the one that’s the heat dial in the climate screen becomes the mode-change dial in the car screen. Down spec Evoques have a normal set of climate controls in the same position. The driver’s instruments are actual hardware items, where it’s TFT in the trim levels that come with the Touch Pro Duo bundle. Another display-based bit of magic: the optional Ground View system. Cameras embedded around the front of the car feed the screen with an image of the area down between and forward of the front wheels. Imagine the bonnet and engine bay were glass. As usual Range Rover portrays it as an off-road aid, for avoiding boulders and crevasses. IRL you’ll use it to steer between city width restrictors without kerbing the wheels. The rear-view mirror can also be camera-linked, showing an image fed from a cam behind the roof aerial. It shows a usefully wide angle (the Evoque’s rear glass is tiny) and lets you see past rear passengers or a boot packed to the roof. But think back to the optics lesson in school physics. This is a real image, meaning your eyes have to re-focus from the road to the rear-view picture close to your eyes. That can be tiring, especially at night. In a real mirror, the focal distance is the same as the road ahead. The new mirror is half-silvered so usefully you can still switch it to the time-honoured type. A Range Rover’s driving position is meant to be commanding, and this one does feel high without being wobbly or vertiginous. The seats support you snugly. In the back, there’s all the room a grown-up needs but not a nanometre more, and the roof and pillars crowd in a bit. Accommodation is generous for what cabin-crew insist on calling ‘personal effects’. Under the centre armrest lives a deep bin, and there’s also storage behind the duo screen, and big door bins. Prices start at £31,600 for the 150bhp diesel. All others have four-wheel drive, auto transmission and the mild hybrid system. They proceed well beyond £50k. But then model-for-model it’s no dearer than the first generation, so people must be OK with paying these amounts. You choose an engine, a visual trim level (base or R-Dynamic) and then one of four equipment levels: base, S, SE and HSE. You get built-in navigation and phone mirroring by ascending to S, while SE brings the multi-screen setup. HSE gets better driver assist, adaptive cruise and Meridian sound, but you can order some of these separately. For company car drivers, the CO2 outputs range between 143 and 186g/km. Mild hybrid or not, these are mediocre numbers. You’re paying for the off-road ability. On fuel, the mid-power diesels do manage just better than 40mpg on WLTP, while the petrols are around 30mpg, which you might just equal on a run. Warranty is three years, unlimited mileage. You might need it. Which? has found the outgoing Evoque and current Discovery Sport to be among the least reliable cars you can buy. Just hope the new platform has brought more trustworthy design and manufacturing. "SUBSCRIBE NOW"

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