New Velar EV Testing in Finland - Or Is It a New Jag?

The automobile spy shot network has found its latest prey: an all-electric Land Rover product in Finland that looks like it could be a new Range Rover Velar. Is it? Let's dig into the hints.

According to the spy shots, the vehicle is a low-slung almost-wagon, even lower-slung than the current Velar. The roof slopes down before jumping back up into a boxed-off rear. The lights are barely exposed, just enough to function; the mesh grille aperture is tall, taller, and squarer than anything currently made by Land Rover (which has been taking its grilles slimmer, if anything) -- though that means very little, as the mesh aperture can be made bigger than the grille itself.

If you look up the number plate on the UK's MOT Search website, which gives basic information on every registered vehicle in Britain, it's listed as a "Land Rover Unknown" with an electric powertrain. Its Velar-esque shape makes that the easy Land Rover product to assume we're looking at. The Velar, launched as the avante-garde Range Rover in 2017, is a bit long in the tooth, the facelift last year extremely subtle. The rumor mill also says that the Velar is going all-electric the next time around.

But... there are a few things out there that make the rumors that this is a Velar, not make that much sense.

First off, the first-ever Range Rover Electric was announced a few months ago and has a waiting list. The flagship Range Rover will lead the way on Land Rover's electric trail, with the Range Rover Sport Electric up next. These vehicles may be ready for delivery later this year, but Land Rover has been clear that they will take the time needed to get the vehicle right.

Those vehicles will, of course, look like current gas-powered Range Rovers when they hit the test tracks. But if they're the first electric Land Rovers on deck, they should also be the first electric Land Rovers to hit the test circuit. They may have camouflage, but as they did with Defender variants that were tested and launched after the design was revealed, the camo will likely be minimal and focused on modified elements. Even the Defender SVX, the high-performance wide-track model that's been in testing for ages, is driving around test tracks with its hefty haunches only barely camouflaged.

The rear of this test vehicle is also unusual. The sexy, sultry lines of the front end collapse into a disjointed, chaotic rear structure. The swooping window line up front, so close to the edge of the body it can't be camouflaged that far out of its true shape, loses track completely in the rear structure. The twin-fin antennas, positioned at the rear edge of the roof on new Range Rovers, are floating somewhere around the middle of the roof on this vehicle.

It's all awkward, disjointed, more than you can camo an SUV, and not at all in line with the second generation of the Range Rover Velar, which brought such style and elegance to the Range Rover lineup in 2017. But what if it wasn't a new Range Rover at all -- but rather the test mule for the new Jaguar grand tourer, already announced last year as the first vehicle in Jag's new all-electric 2025 model lineup?

Jaguar announced that its lineup would relaunch with a four-door grand tourer built on its all-new JEA architecture (Jaguar Electric Architecture). This platform is totally separate from the MLA-Flex platform underpinning the new big Range Rovers and is electric-only. The vehicle is scheduled to debut later in 2024 as a 2025 model-year vehicle. By next year, all the current Jags, including the current I-Pace EV, will be off the market.

So we have a vehicle that has some impossibly awkward proportions to be a Range Rover, out of schedule to be the Velar, knowing what we know about Range Rover electrification. It hit the test tracks six months before the latest point that model year 2025 vehicles would debut, all-electric with an all-electric Jaguar future on the horizon. Sure, the UK registration says that it's a Land Rover vehicle. That doesn't have to mean anything.