2025 Range Rover Sport PHEV Review: Turning Electrification Into a Luxury Feature

There are luxury SUVs that try very hard to convince you they’re practical, sporty, efficient, and somehow still special. Then there’s the 2025 Range Rover Sport Autobiography PHEV, which skips the sales pitch and just shows up looking expensive. It has that particular Range Rover talent for seeming both aggressively modern and completely uninterested in trends. The plug-in hybrid setup only sharpens that vibe. This thing is not trying to reinvent the luxury SUV. It’s trying to make the existing formula quieter, smoother, and just a little smarter. In a lot of ways, it succeeds.

The version I borrowed was basically the full expression of that idea. Carpathian Grey. Black roof. Red calipers. Massive 23-inch wheels. A cabin trimmed like a private lounge. And under it all, a turbocharged and electrified straight-six making over 540 horsepower, backed by a battery big enough to make the electric side of the experience feel real, not symbolic. At $131,680 as configured, it also shows up with the kind of price tag that makes clear this is not a quiet little efficiency play. This is fast, rich, quiet, and deeply competent, but the “Sport” badge still promises more attitude than the chassis really delivers.

The Shape of Taste

The best thing about the Range Rover Sport’s design is how little it needs to explain itself. The shape is clean, heavy, and confident. Flush deployable door handles, slim lighting, a black contrast roof, and almost absurdly tidy surfacing make it feel like someone finally deleted all the unnecessary lines from a luxury SUV. Even now, years into this design language, it still looks expensive in a way a lot of rivals don’t. Not flashy. Not fussy. Just expensive. And in this spec, with the dark wheels and red calipers, it gets exactly enough edge without tipping into try-hard territory.

The plug-in hybrid doesn’t really announce itself visually. There’s no dramatic EV design twist here, and that works in its favor. The whole point of this vehicle is that electrification should feel baked in, not bolted on. The tradeoff is that if you were hoping the PHEV version would look meaningfully different or more futuristic, it doesn’t. It just looks like a very well-dressed Range Rover Sport. Which is already a strong place to start.

A Cabin That Knows the Assignment

Inside is where the Range Rover really makes its case. The cabin feels expensive before you touch anything, and it mostly holds up once you do. My tester’s Caraway and Ebony interior, semi-aniline leather, suedecloth headliner, refrigerator compartment, configurable ambient lighting, massage seats, heated and ventilated front and rear seating, four-zone climate control, and panoramic roof all combine into something that feels closer to a rolling lounge than a conventional SUV cabin. This trim doesn’t give you luxury as a checklist. It gives you luxury as atmosphere.

The minimalist layout looks fantastic, but it also comes with the usual modern-premium compromise: fewer physical controls, more glossy surfaces, and a little too much faith that clean design automatically equals better usability. Rear-seat space is good rather than class-leading, which feels fair. This is a two-row SUV that costs real money, and while it’s absolutely comfortable, it doesn’t completely dominate on packaging. The vibe is first class. The pure space efficiency is merely good.

Quiet Power, Big Weight, Real Speed

This powertrain is the real story. The Range Rover Sport Autobiography PHEV makes 542 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque, and the point is simple: this thing moves. It gets to 60 mph in the mid-four-second range, which is serious speed for a plug-in luxury SUV weighing well over three tons. The battery is large enough to make the electric side of the experience feel legitimate, not token, with an EPA-rated 53 miles of EV range. In gas-only driving, efficiency is fine, not miraculous. The magic here is not the headline efficiency number. It’s the breadth. This can do school-run EV duty and then disappear onto the highway like a proper grand touring SUV.

What I like most about the plug-in hybrid setup is that it actually fits the Range Rover character. Silent electric driving makes more sense in this vehicle than a louder, more theatrical powertrain. Around town, the hush feels right. The shove feels immediate. The whole vehicle seems happiest when it’s gliding. That’s also where the “Sport” part starts to fade a bit. It’s quick, but it’s not especially exciting. You feel the mass in corners and under braking, and the regenerative-to-friction brake handoff can be uneven. This is not a back-road weapon. It is a luxury SUV with a very convincing burst of speed. That’s a different thing.

Still, capability remains part of the appeal. All-wheel drive, air suspension, all-wheel steering, an active differential, and Range Rover’s off-road systems are all part of the package. Most owners will use exactly none of that to its limit, but it matters that the hardware is there. The Range Rover Sport still carries itself like something that could leave the pavement without immediately losing the plot. Very few luxury plug-in SUVs can say that with a straight face.

Screens, Sound, and a Few Too Many Taps

The infotainment setup is classic modern Range Rover. On paper, it’s great. This tester gets a 13.1-inch Pivi Pro touchscreen, wireless charging, Bluetooth, USB ports, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, Amazon Alexa, a head-up display, and the upgraded Meridian Signature sound system. In practice, the good news is that the system is quick, clean, and modern. It wakes up fast and syncs with CarPlay almost immediately, which matters more than flashy animations ever will.

The less good news is that Range Rover is still a little too committed to touchscreen minimalism. The menu structure can get deeper than it needs to be, and that complaint is easy to understand. When you need multiple taps to get to something as basic as a massage function, the interface has stopped being elegant and started being a chore. This is one of those systems that looks incredibly sophisticated in a driveway and slightly less convincing at 45 mph. The software itself feels solid. It’s the decision to bury too much inside it that gets in the way.

The Luxury Part Wins

The 2025 Range Rover Sport Autobiography PHEV is a very Range Rover solution to the hybrid question. It does not chase thrift. It does not apologize for being large or expensive. It uses electrification to make the vehicle feel more like itself: quieter, smoother, more serene, and more flexible day to day. That turns out to be a pretty compelling idea. The electric range is genuinely useful. The performance is strong. The cabin feels special. The design still lands. And the long list of hardware underneath means it has real capability beyond the valet stand.

This is a better luxury SUV than it is a sport SUV. The name promises athleticism. The actual experience delivers composure, isolation, and wealth. Honestly, that feels like the right trade. At $131,680 as configured, this is an extravagant machine. It should feel like an event every time you drive it, and mostly, it does. The question isn’t whether the plug-in hybrid makes the Range Rover Sport better. It does. The question is whether you’re buying it for the badge on the back or for the way it quietly disappears the stress of being in a car. That second answer is where this one earns its keep.