Problems for the new Range Rover: safety at risk and “flopped” test – Mondofuoristrada.it

Bad news for the Land Rover brand which did not make a good impression during one of the most important tests to verify the safety of a car. The much heralded model did not do well at all.

A car must be beautiful and perform well…but above all safe. This car despite the price, market expectations and fans who can’t wait to drive it may not be a good choice at all. Here’s what happened and why the English house Land Rover could find itself a very big nut to crack on its hands if it doesn’t take immediate action.

Great expectations, great risks

The new series of Land Rover Range Rover, one of the most famous SUVs and off-road vehicles in the history of the world, arrived on the market two years ago with great expectations, with great fanfare. We are talking about a large, imposing vehicle, expensive and high performance that often you pay a fortune and the versions intended to improve the conditions of global warming are certainly no exception.

Also the P440 version of the Range Rover, the hybrid one with a 3-litre engine that should project the English brand towards the now imminent ecological transition – the European stop to cars that are not Green will arrive in 2035 – it doesn’t come cheap given that its price tag starts at 138,000 euros. At the very least, such a vehicle must be as safe and precise as a Swiss watch on the street.

The test failed

The car, according to what is learned from various sources in the foreign and Italian press, would have recently made a bad impression in one of the most important tests to decree the safety of a model. Let’s talk about the famous moose test, invented right in Sweden where it happens that wild animals like these suddenly cross the road. Considering that in Italy there are deer, wild boars and foxes that do the same, this is a challenge that even the cars we sell must overcome.

This test became famous in 1997 when the famous Mercedes-Benz A-Class lost the challenge by flipping over while performing sharp turns between the S-shaped cones in the middle of the road. The test is in fact repeated at increasingly higher speeds until the car loses grip or runs the risk of skidding. It is to be expected that a Land Rover don’t struggle to deal with it, right?

Too heavy

And instead, surprisingly, the professional pilots who carried out the test on the Land Rover bison remained anything but impressed from the performance of the massive off-road vehicle that didn’t make a good impression during the difficult and dangerous maneuvers that simulate the sudden appearance of an obstacle in the middle of the roadway. The car is not all that safe.

According to the test drivers, the car performed poorly: “The vehicle is very slow when cornering, also due to the weight. It tends to suffer from understeer which already appears at 63 kilometers per hour, the maximum speed at which the car passed the test”, say the pilots. Whereas on the highway you go to much higher speeds that’s not exactly encouraging news for potential buyers.

The fault of this debacle would be excessive weight: the bodies in charge have been saying for months that the weight of electric cars, especially SUVs, is becoming excessive and that this heavily affects the safety of the occupants and other road users. Weighing around three tons, the Range Rover is certainly no exception and this test proves it irrefutably.