Range Rover Hybrid takes on India's craziest roads

Опубликовано 2 января 2014, 10:03

We embark on a mammoth test drive in the new Range Rover Hybrid through India. Read our full Range Rover review here: bit.ly/JLakHC

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What's the best way to show off the capabilities of a new Range Rover Hybrid? For Land Rover, it was driving three prototypes 10,000 miles from the factory in Solihull, W Mids, to Mumbai in India -- home of parent company Tata. And we were invited to be part of the 53-day epic adventure -- the world's first hybrid expedition.

The route followed the legendary Silk Road trading routes that first connected Asia with Europe over 2,500 years ago -- taking in France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China (including Tibet), Nepal and India.

This expedition would allow Land Rover to see how close the Hybrid could get to its official 44mpg economy figure when driven in a variety of conditions. These ranged from operating in temperatures from -10 to 43 degrees Centigrade and at altitudes of up to 5,500 metres above sea level, where oxygen levels are as little as 10 per cent.

Details on how the prototypes performed were logged along the way. In total, 300GB of data was sent back to Land Rover's technical centre in the UK to help fine-tune the final production vehicle, which goes on sale in January, priced £98,430.