One of the most respected and
coveted names in the world of off-roading vehicles is
the Range Rover. They sport a strong
outdoor heritage, luxurious interiors and widely acclaimed designs. The Range Rover name has gone
from being a single model within the portfolio of parent Land
Rover to a full lineup of vehicles, a brand
in its own right. Some in the industry say
Range Rover might be more recognizable than Land Rover
itself, which makes other sport utility vehicles such as
the Discovery and the highly respected Defender. From a brand perspective I think
Range Rover is the brand. I think it has much more
notoriety than even Land Rover does. Range Rovers are equally at
home in the wilderness as they are in the streets of
London, New York or Dubai, and have been favored by the
British royal family and Kim Kardashian. The Range Rover
combines capability with luxury. They have been so
successful at this pairing that Range Rovers are more likely
to be bought as prestige vehicles than what they
were originally meant for. All of this has earned Range
Rover and by association, Land Rover, an enviable place
in the automotive market. This is fortunate for its
owners, the Jaguar Land Rover group and its parent, India's
Tata Motors, which have seen their fair share of struggles
in recent years.Land Rover sold 368,066 units in the
fiscal year spanning 2019 and 2020, compared with
140,593 Jaguar vehicles. Out of the seven models Land
Rover sells, four are grouped under the Range Rover sub-brand
and sales of the original Range Rover, the Range Rover
Sport, Velar and the Evoque together comprised 70 percent
of Land Rover's sales. The Range Rover name has exceptional
power earned for it by an extraordinary product. But its rivals are growing
more numerous and more formidable every year. Range Rover began as a secret
project within Land Rover in the late 1960s. The original Range Rover prototypes,
of which there were 26, were given the code name
Velar from the Italian word "velare" which means to
veil or cover. The company had the idea of
taking the products in a little bit of a different direction,
and they identified a more upmarket version of a Land
Rover that they thought would appeal to the aristocracy, the
landowners, or you know, the people who had country
homes, who had land. The Range Rover was
introduced in 1970. It came with two side doors and
a hatch on the back and was the first vehicle to feature
Land Rovers permanent four wheel drive system. A four-door version came
out in 1981. The first generation vehicle
was a critical success. Early versions were comfortable and
capable, but tended to be rugged and simple, with a
lot of washable vinyl and plastic in the interiors. What made the Range Rover special
for SUVs of its time was an excellent performance, both
off-road and on-road. The vehicle completed an unprecedented
18,000 mile trek from Anchorage, Alaska, to the southern
tip of the Tierra del Fuego in South America, another
trek 7,500 miles across the Sahara Desert and a modified
version one the first Paris-Dakar rally race
in 1979. The second generation Range Rover,
which debuted in 1994 was a luxury upgrade over its
predecessor, taking a bigger step toward the fancy mall prowling
Range Rovers of today. Notably, this was the generation
that swapped out the circular headlamps for rectangular
ones, a design that stuck. In the mid 1990s
Land Rover also introduced its autobiography Design Service, which
allowed buyers to customize interiors with
top shelf materials. In 1994, the German luxury
and performance automaker BMW bought the Rover Group, a
family of British vehicle brands that owned Land Rover
at the time. The third generation Range Rover,
designed during this time with heavy input from BMW,
moved the vehicle even further upmarket. Range Rover became
a larger unibody vehicle, meaning the chassis and the body
of the vehicle were fused together to form one piece. The interior was luxurious,
taking cues from high-end yachts and first
class airline cabins. BMW owned Range Rover for a
really small amount of time, just a blink of the eye in
terms of the auto industry, and they transformed it into the brand
that we know it today. The one that, you know, you hear
about it in songs and in pop culture so much it kind
of took the industry by storm. By 2000, Land Rover was split
off from the Rover group and sold by BMW to Ford Motor
Company, where it would become part of Ford's Premier Automotive
Group, that also included Aston Martin, Volvo and Jaguar,
along with longtime premium Ford brands Lincoln
and Mercury. 2005 brought the
Range Rover Sport. It gave prospective buyers a
speedier variety, with its supercharged 4.2 liter engine. Cross-linked air suspension allowed
drivers to raise and lower the vehicle on its
wheels, giving them greater ground clearance off road or a lower
center of gravity for better handling on road. Ford eventually sold Land Rover
along with Jaguar to India's Tata Motors in 2008
for $2.3 billion. We've been through quite a
few ownership changes over the years and with those ownership
changes has come opportunity and opportunity has really fed into
our ability to do the right things for the products, and
move it on the way we want to move it on. Range
Rover expanded its lineup yet again with the Evoque in 2011
as the smallest Range Rover model available. The compact
SUV was critically acclaimed and allowed buyers to get into
a Range Rover at a much lower price than they would have
to pay for the flagship. With the fourth generation Range
Rover adopted an aluminum body, a move that Ford would
also later make with its best selling F-150 full
sized pickup truck. Using lightweight aluminum gave
the vehicle better fuel economy. We're on the fourth
generation now and the current one for for sales. Perspective is by far the
most successful one that we've built. Land Rover out did
this fuel efficiency effort by introducing a hybrid
the following year. As it developed, Range Rover
transformed from a go-anywhere, do anything workhorse to
a rolling status symbol. The transformation exemplified a
larger shift in the automotive market in the
United States and increasingly outside of it. Decades ago,
off-road vehicles were tools. Pickup trucks usually came with two
doors and only one row of seats. Jeeps and other
sport utilities were functional and capable of surmounting obstacles,
but often came with a harsh ride, poorly insulated
cabins and few creature comforts. These were vehicles for
getting a job done, not for cruising. If you wanted to do
that, you got a sedan or maybe an eye-catching
sports car. But somewhere along the way,
rich drivers started favoring pricey SUVs to ride and
comfort and flaunt their wealth. And the Range Rover was the
defining vehicle of this shift. There were very few high-end
SUVs at the time. I mean, you had a Navigator
and Escalade and those kind of capped out at a certain price. And now you sort of develop the
high end, the sort of super premium level SUV, which really
didn't exist prior to Range Rover. It has maintained this
cachet and become something of a pop culture icon itself. And Range Rovers sell
at very high prices. Land Rover has some of
the highest transaction prices of any brand on the market. A fully options Range Rover
Autobiography can easily top $200,000. That does not seem
to slow down sales, however. Range Rover sales in the US
grew from about 8,746 units in 2010 to a peak of
19,030 units in 2018. They have fallen a bit since
then, but so have auto sales in the U.S. overall. The often sky high prices
have perplexed many people. In terms of capability, Range
Rovers are up there with other off-road juggernauts like the
Mercedes G -class, the Jeep Wrangler, the Toyota Land
Cruiser and 4runner, and perhaps in some ways also a
growing set of off-road ready pickups such as the Ford Raptor,
Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro, the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, and the
RAM Rebel Power Wagon and TRX. But the Range Rovers eye
toward luxury shows and its price tag. Newer Range Rover
name bearing siblings start at above average but
still attainable prices. The 2020 Evoque starts at
a relatively modest price around $43,000, which is several thousand
dollars higher than the average transaction price
of $37,000. But it looks downright cheap compared
to the top prices for the main Range Rover model. But buyers who want the flagship
model that made the Range Rover name what it is will
pay at least $92,000 for the 2021 model year. The price goes
up from there and it can really go up. To be fair, plenty of
other off-roaders are not exactly cheap. The Land Cruiser also
starts around $90,000 and there are many, many other premium
SUVs now on the market from Porsche, BMW, Mercedes and
even Lamborghini and Aston Martin. But Land Rover is a
name with a rugged outdoor heritage. This is the classic
British bush vehicle meant for barreling across the
African savannah, creeping through jungles and rainforests, fording
rivers and climbing over rock formations. Vehicles like that
are meant for taking a beating, for enduring harsh
conditions, for getting scratches on their paint jobs. Who can really afford to beat
up a vehicle with a six-figure price tag? Range Rovers retain that original
DNA of Land Rover, and they they still can go
anywhere, even if consumers don't ever get to experience it. If they did, they would be
really impressed at what their vehicle could do off road. The contrast between the sheer
capability of the Range Rover and the way in which it is
typically used has at times made it the butt of a few jokes. Like similar SUVs favored by
well-heeled buyers who almost never drive off pavement. Range Rovers have been called
names such as "mall crawlers" and "soft-roaders." Though it was always intended
as an upmarket vehicle. Range Rovers transformation from country
going 4X4 to an ever more luxurious coach
has brought some criticism. The engineer who designed the
original Range Rover, Charles Spencer King, said in 2004 that
the Range Rover was never intended as a status symbol. I find the people who use
it as such deeply unattractive, he said. "Sadly, the 4X4 has
become an alternative to a Mercedes or BMW. For the pompous,
self-important driver." Land Rovers are all about
fantastic design and fantastic capability. That's the recipe
that works for us. And that's what we found
that's really built a loyal clientele and people coming back
time and time again. And it appeals to an upper end
buyer who may not take you off road. But equally, if they
choose to do so, it's perfectly quick for them
to do that. Of course, now Mercedes and BMW
are also selling luxury SUVs that compete in
similar sized segments. If there's one other reservation a
buyer might have about a Range Rover. It's that the Land
Rover brand name does not have a sterling
reputation for reliability. For example, Land Rover
ranks lowest on J.D. Power's dependability survey. Days gone by, there have
certainly been quality issues with our cars and we've
worked to resolve those. There's always a story, but
big picture it's very important to us and we'll continue to
work exceptionally hard to keep making our products better. In 2020, the Range Rover has
been overshadowed a bit by the revival of The Defender, a
product much of the automotive world has been anticipating. Defender, in its original
form, represented the ultimate civilian off-roading machine
for countless admirers. Land Rovers other product
line is the Discovery. On average, lower priced pair
of sport utilities the company markets as vehicles
more intended as functional off-roaders and family cars. Still nice, but not quite at
the same level of luxury as the Range Rover. But the
Range Rover sub-brand is Land Rover's biggest product line. Four out of Land Rovers, seven
models bear the Range Rover name, and together they comprised
70 percent of all Land Rovers sold in the fiscal
year ending in March 2020. And the Range Rover and Range
Rover Sport, the two most expensive models, make up 70 percent
of sales in the Range Rover lineup. In fact, the
biggest, most expensive model is the top seller, and it is
unusual for a brand's Halo vehicle to also be
its most popular. That makes Range Rover a crown
jewel within a crown jewel. When they added Sport and
called it Range Rover Sport. I know those of us in the
industry kind of scratch our heads and we're like,
well, that's confusing. Well, then they rounded out and
kept adding more and more models to it. Now they've got
this sort of sub-brand that is clearly identified. And in some cases, you could
say that the subm-brand is actually bigger than the brand
itself, I mean, very few people that would own a Range
Rover would say, "I have a Land Rover," whereas you might
say you have a foreigner, you have a Chevrolet. Land Rover
is part of the Jaguar Land Rover group, which is partly
named for Jaguar, another British brand with a very strong
heritage, but one that has had some trouble adapting to
a changing global market. While Land Rover has been
well positioned for the broader shift to SUVs, Jaguar, historically
known as a maker of luxurious and high-performing sedans
and sports cars, has struggled. In recent years, Jaguar
has tried to carve out its own niche in the sport
utility market by focusing on street performance and by being the
first of the JLR brands to launch a
fully electric vehicle. Electrification is coming to Land
Rover as well though. There are plug-in versions of
both the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport and Land
Rover plans to electrify its entire lineup. Developing electric
vehicle tech is expensive, and Jaguar Land Rover
will need help from its parent, India's Tata Motors. Fortunately, Land Rover is a
brand Tata Motors needs as well. In 2020, an analyst from
CLSA said Tata Motors was worth nothing without the Jaguar
Land Rover brand, which is itself heavily dependent on Land
Rover for volume and profitability. For now, Range Rover
seems to have few true competitors. I don't think anyone
had as much brand recognition in this space as
a Range Rover did. And of course, everyone is wanting
to build out an SUV model that is ultra luxury, that
is very expensive, but not everyone is necessarily
going to succeed. So I think kind of being one
of the first people to the party is helping them out there,
because it seems like the original and the original was always
a good place to be. And I think that's why we've
seen a lot of success with, you know, the Mercedes
G-Wagon as well. The auto market, in the U.S. and increasingly elsewhere, is
still shifting towards sport utility vehicles and toward
higher priced vehicles. Brands such as Porsche, Lamborghini
and Aston Martin are all making sport utilities, something
that would have been once unthinkable for brands
synonymous with sports cars. But SUVs are where
the buyers are. To be in all SUV brand in a
time when SUV mix is over 50 percent of the industry and
that's all consumers seem to want, has really worked out
in Land Rover's favor. That means that the rarefied
air Range Rover occupies could soon see some new entries that
chip away at its market share. And if that happens,
many more dominoes could begin to fall. But Range Rover does
have something a lot of rivals don't, a
strong brand heritage. There's not a lot around it
for it to really draw consumers away from. So maybe there's
a risk of fatigue. But I got to be honest,
it's really not materializing with the way consumers
are behaving. So it could continue to be
the high-end SUV of choice for quite some time.
