In an interview with Autocar, Jaguar’s chief commercial officer Lennard Hoornik hinted that the Land Rover Defender won’t hit the market until 2030.

Land Rover has conducted research into electrifying the Defender, which has shown a lack of space for batteries. “We said we would do an electric model for each of our new brands, Range Rover, Defender, Discovery and Jaguar. We remain committed to that. But finding the space in the current Defender is really, really difficult. We’ll have to use something different,” Hoornik said.

Hoornik also added that electrifying the current L663, which is based on the D7x platform, is not something the company wants to do. “The L663 is brilliant at what it does and we already have a four-cylinder plug-in hybrid version, but it’s not easy to find the extra space in the chassis that you need for the batteries, given the axle and the capabilities that are required,” Hoornik said.

It is not known whether a new platform will be developed or whether JLR will use an existing one for the future Defender EV.

Source: Autocar