2024 Range Rover Evoque Autobiography review: Growing old gracefully

If you look at the Land Rover LRX concept from 2008 and this Range Rover Evoque, you’ll be left in no doubt what a debt the latter owes the former. Some 16 years on Julian Thomson’s transformational design language looks as fresh today as ever.

The car beneath, however, is very different. Launched in 2011, an all-new version arrived in 2018 and now this cosmetically lifted version aims to bring things bang up to date.

Most notable is the new interior which, in the modern vogue, regards buttons as almost entirely unnecessary evils, so all bar the most basic functions are accessed via the obligatory vast touchscreen. Which means the cabin looks as clean as an operating table and rather more beautiful. But as I have noted with other such systems, it just doesn’t work very well. To me any system that requires you to spend more time with your eyes off the road prodding at little icons is fundamentally flawed.

But the rest of the car is defying its age nicely. I drove a range-topping plug-in hybrid that does almost 40 miles on electric power and is backed by a slightly rough but always enthusiastic 1.5-litre, three-cylinder engine; between them a decent blend of power and efficiency has been achieved. Even the price no longer looks that outrageous when you consider first what’s now being asked for pure EVs and second that a base diesel Evoque is priced at just over £40,000, which is rather less than the Renault Scenic reviewed below. AF

Range Rover Evoque Autobiography

• Price £63,565
• Engine 1.5 litres, three cylinders, petrol, hybrid
• Power 304bhp
• Torque 398lb ft
• Weight 1923kg
• Transmission Single-speed automatic, four-wheel drive
• 0-60mph 6.4sec
• Top speed 132mph
• Economy 184mpg (WLTP)
• CO2 34g/km (WLTP)
• Verdict Bring back the button.