Range Rover Evoque Review & Prices

The Range Rover Evoque is a small, premium SUV that you should consider if you want stylish looks, a high-tech interior and the ability to traipse further off-road than the likes of the Audi Q3, BMW X2 and Volvo XC40 can muster.

In fact, this all-new model features some of the fanciest 4×4 tech of any small SUV, which is a bit like wearing all the latest gear for a Himalayas expedition for a stroll to the shops.

It doesn’t look particularly futuristic from the outside. In fact, from the side, this new model looks almost identical to the old Range Rover Evoque – even though they only share their door hinges.

From the front, it looks much more fresh-faced thanks to some hand-me-down headlights borrowed from its bigger brother – the Velar – as well as some tasty copper-coloured details in high-spec R-Dynamic guise.

Things feel very different inside, however, where you’ll find a feast of high-tech features – like those modern digital cameras that have been made to look like a retro 35mm item. All models come with at least a 10.0-inch screen, but higher trims come with two screens stacked on the centre console.

Go for a top-spec model and you get three infotainment displays including a digital driver’s display. You can also spec a special rear view mirror that flips from classic mirror to a screen with a rear camera feed – it works quite well once you’re used to it.

The whole system’s pretty easy to use and it can even learn where you want your seat positioned, how warm you want the cabin and whether you prefer a gentle or heavy-handed seat massage. Very impressive. Even so, alternative infotainment systems from BMW, Audi and Mercedes are a bit easier to use.

You do have to pay extra for leather seats, but you can choose to trim your Evoque’s cabin with upholstery made with a Eucalyptus-based fabric instead. It’s kinder to the environment and will doubtless score you plenty of (dairy-free) brownie points from any vegan passengers.

Vegan or not, even your fussiest friends won’t have much to complain about in the Evoque. There’s enough space in the back for six-foot-tall adults to get comfortable and the seats themselves are nice and supportive. Things are even better in the front, where you get loads of adjustment to help you find your ideal driving position.

Unlike the old Evoque, this new car comes only with five doors (instead of the option of three) so it’s dead easy to fit a child seat in the back. Loading the boot won’t present any problems either – the new Evoque’s luggage area is around 10% bigger than the old car’s and much larger than the BMW X2’s so there’s plenty of space for a few suitcases or generously proportioned dogs.

If you fancy taking your four-legged friends for a countryside excursion, the Range Rover Evoque is more than up to the job – providing you avoid the entry-level diesel and petrol models with only front-wheel drive.

The rest of the range comes with a smooth automatic gearbox, grippy four-wheel drive and your choice of petrol mild-hybrid, diesel mild-hybrid or petrol plug-in hybrid power, producing as much as 309hp. Despite all this hybrid-ness, generally speaking, you’ll find the Evoque’s alternatives use less fuel.

You get a host of off-road driving aids to help make sure you don’t get stuck too, including Land Rover’s Terrain Response 2 system. This makes setting the car up for a variety of off-road conditions easy and you can even wade through water up to 60cm deep – just the thing when you’re faced with a flash flood on the school run. It’s just a shame that some of these headline new systems aren’t fitted to all models, and aren’t cheap to add.

If pottering around town sounds more like your thing, you can get the Range Rover Evoque with a clever camera system which helps you avoid scraping its lovely alloy wheels on tall kerbs or narrow width restrictors.

All this means the Range Rover Evoque is just as happy nipping to the shops as it is clawing its way up rocky farm tracks. So, if it’s a small SUV with a posh cabin, plenty of off-road ability and an impressive amount of tech you’re after, this could be the car for you.

Find great deals on the Range Rover Evoque at carwow, or if you're interested in a used Range Rover Evoque check out our used page.

Well, it’s a Range Rover so it’s never going to be exactly cheap, is it? Mind you, the Evoque isn’t quite as expensive as you might expect. It’s a little pricier, in basic form, than the BMW X2 but it’s equally just a touch cheaper than the new BMW X1 (it kind of competes with both). Equally, the Audi Q3 is cheaper to buy, but only just, while the Evoque is more affordable than both the Mercedes GLA and GLB. It’s more expensive than a Lexus UX, but then again the UX is a smaller car — really more of a glorified hatchback — but it doesn’t take much of a dip into the options list to make an Evoque pricier than the bigger, and very impressive, hybrid-engined Lexus NX. 

While that basic Evoque model, with its 163hp diesel engine, isn’t too badly priced, the cost does head skywards pretty quickly after that. If you want an all-bells-and-whistles plug-in hybrid model in swanky Autobiography trim, you’re looking at a price nudging the £60,000 barrier. Mid-spec R-Dynamic SE is probably your best bet, but watch the options list as it’s a long and pricey one. Mind you, the Evoque might be expensive but it holds onto its value really well, so it’s got great PCP monthly repayments.

More fun to drive on twisty roads than you’d expect, but it’s bumpier and more hesitant around town. Reigns supreme off-road, though

In town

The Evoque might be the smallest Range Rover you can buy, but it still gives you some of that traditional Land Rover ‘command’ driving position, so you get a great view out over the bonnet and you feel a bit like you’re looking down on other car drivers (at least until a bigger Range Rover pulls up next to you…). You get nice big door mirrors, which are great when you’re parking, but less good is the fact that the rear screen is pretty small, so the view out of the back isn’t great, something that’s not helped by chunky rear roof pillars which really block your over-the-shoulder view. The automatic gearbox is also slow to respond when you need a quick burst of acceleration, such as when you’re pulling out of a busy junction, and you can be left floundering, waiting for the ‘box to make up its mind.

The Evoque’s low-speed ride is also a bit suspect. It deals with big things — speedbumps and the likes — quite nicely, but smaller bumps make it fidget about quite a lot, and it’s not as effortlessly smooth as a Volvo XC40.

On the motorway

That jittery suspension does smooth out quite a bit when you bring the Evoque up to motorway speed, and it does start to glide along rather nicely. It’s also very quiet and refined as there’s very little road noise nor wind noise. The Evoque’s diesel engines can be noisy though, especially — once again — when you need a quick burst of acceleration, when that sluggish gearbox takes its time to kick down and then shunts down two gears at once, letting the engine rev up too high. The plug-in hybrid is considerably quieter, but it can make an occasional odd noise at lower speeds that sounds as if someone is flushing a small toilet behind the dashboard…

On a twisty road

The Evoque might be tall(ish) and heavy(ish) but it’s surprisingly good when it comes to bendy roads. There’s very little body lean, and while the steering isn’t the quickest across its locks, it is precise and there’s a little touch of road feel and feedback, which is great as then you know how much grip the front wheels have.

What about roads that don’t have any tarmac at all? Clearly, a basic front-wheel drive Evoque is going to be challenged by anything more taxing than a bumpy field, but the four-wheel drive models are about as good in the rough stuff as you’d expect a junior Land Rover to be. The 600mm wading depth (that’s just over a foot-and-a-half) is especially useful if you live in an area prone to flooding, and you can even (optionally) spec it with water depth sensors in the wing mirrors so that you don’t dive into anything that the car can’t cope with. In fact, the Evoque can cope with quite a bit more than pretty much any of its competition when it comes to off-roading, but watch for the R-Dynamic version which has a front bumper design that’s a bit more vulnerable to being bashed.

There are two four-wheel drive systems, with the higher-spec one being able to distribute engine power from side-to-side as well as front-to-back, but for most owners the basic system will do just fine.

You can spec the Evoque will a clever all-around camera system which is really helpful when off-roading (or when negotiating tight car parks…) and there’s also Land Rover’s Terrain Response system which sets up the traction control and four-wheel drive systems to best respond to surfaces such as mud, grass, snow, and even sand. It’s no Defender when the going gets really tough, but it’s more capable than pretty much anyone will ever ask it to be.

Typical Land Rover practicality, and good rear seat space but the boot isn’t as big as it could be

Practicality

You’d expect a Range Rover to be practical, and so it is. Up front, the Evoque gets huge door bins, and a good-sized storage bin under the front-seat armrest (which also gets two USB sockets and a 12-volt connection). In front of that, there are two cupholders which are fine, but they come with a little lift-off cover that turns them into a storage tray. Unfortunately the tray doesn’t slide nor stow away neatly — your only option seems to be to chuck it in the glovebox, which is a bit daft. There is another handy storage area behind the heating and ventilation controls, although it’s easy to forget things that have been stashed there.

Space in the back seats

The Evoque’s rear doors could do with opening a bit wider for practicality’s sake, but they’re not too bad. You get ISOFIX anchor points for child car seats in the outer two rear seats, but they come with little pop-off plastic covers which are very easy to lose. The original Evoque had really tight back seats, but the current model does much better for rear space. It’s still not massively roomy, but there’s enough legroom and headroom (even with the optional glass roof) for tall passengers to get comfy enough, although there’s not much space under the front seats to stretch your feet out. The seats are also set quite low in the back, so taller passengers will find that their knees are in the air, which can be a (literal) pain on a longer journey. The middle rear seat is just about useable, thanks to a relatively small transmission hump, but it is a bit perched-up, and three-across in the back is not massively comfortable. The rear door bins are decent, and you get nice LED reading lights and a coat hook mounted at the front of the rear door, so that a dangling coat isn’t in your face. There’s a 12-volt socket, but annoyingly no USB sockets in the back. It’s also annoying that the rear seats are fixed in place — no sliding and no reclining seatbacks. Boo. The BMW X1 gets those…

Boot space

The boot of the Evoque isn’t the biggest, but at 591 litres it seems massive on paper. That’s because Land Rover quotes its official boot measurements as being loaded to the roof, whereas everybody else only quotes up to the luggage cover. Taken in those terms, the Evoque’s boot is OK but nothing special — and less special again if you go for the plug-in hybrid version, which has an official (Land Rover) measurement of 471 litres. On non-hybrid versions there’s some handy under-floor storage, and a spare tyre is available as an option. You get some very solid tie-down points, and the boot itself is square, and has no load-lip so it’s easy to get heavy items in and out. You also get a 12-volt socket and some little elastic straps for holding taller items upright, plus a netted area at the side of the boot and some pop-out hooks for bags. What’s annoying is that you can’t stash the luggage cover under the floor when you don’t need it, but it is flat so you can just put it at the bottom of the boot and load on top. The back seats split-fold in three sections (40:20:40-style) but they don’t fold 100 per cent flat, although you do get a continuous load floor so you can slide big items to the front. There’s also an electrically deployed tow-hitch as an option, if you need to haul anything behind you and the Evoque can tow up to 2,000kg — which to be honest, isn’t that great. An Audi Q3 can haul 2,200kg.

Some nice bits of style and substance, but overall quality is mixed and the infotainment can’t match the best from the German brands

The cabin design in the Evoque is meant to be simple and uncluttered, giving off a sort of pared-back Scandi luxury hotel look, and it works. It’s a really handsome interior. For the most part, the choice of materials used is good, with lots of nice soft-touch surfaces, but you don’t have to look too hard to find some cheap bits and — worse — some bits that seem to have been stuck on badly. Land Rover is trying to throw off its reputation for poor quality, but the uneven stitching on the Evoque’s dashboard and the cheap plastics that are too easy to find won’t help.

Thankfully, there are some very good bits too, including nice glossy chrome trim around the big infotainment screen and on the doors. The driving position is excellent, with lots of adjustment for the seat and steering wheel and the seats themselves are very comfortable.

All models come with a 10.0-inch touchscreen, but unless you go for a top-spec HST model, you don’t get the latest-spec ‘Pivi Pro’ software that comes with the likes of the Defender and the new full-sized Range Rover. The existing software is fine, but it’s definitely not as slick, and it takes ages for the screen to actually start up when you turn the car on, which is very frustrating when you just want to get going. Higher-spec models get a main screen that whirs out a bit from the dash for a better viewing angle when you turn on the engine, and there’s also the option of a second screen lower down on the dash which controls the heating and air conditioning. This looks good, but it’s actually quite fiddly to use when you’re driving and on sunny days it can be all-but impossible to see properly. You also only get the digital instrument display as standard on that top HST model, leaving all the other versions with analogue dials and a small digital display between them. To be honest, that’s not the penalty it seems as the digital dials are fine, but slightly fiddly to use and they’re not as good as the ‘virtual cockpit’ you get in the Audi Q3.

One useful tech option is the ‘ClearSight’ rear view mirror which can switch to display the view from a high-mounted rear-view camera. That’s very handy if you’ve loaded the boot to the roof, or you’re carrying tall passengers in the back.

All models do get standard-fit Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, so it’s easy to set up your phone in the car, and there’s wireless phone charging included as standard on everything but the basic version.

We like the optional ‘Vegan’ interior which ditches the leather seats, and instead uses a mixture of recycled material and some high-end wool blend. That makes for a really soft seat fabric that feels luxurious, and is actually more comfy than leather on a particularly hot or cold day.

The 163hp 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel engine isn’t great when it comes to economy and emissions. 46mpg is OK, but none too clever and the 160g/km CO2 emissions mean that as a private buyer you’ll have to lash out £585 for your first year’s VED road tax, plus an extra £355 if you’ve added enough options to push the price over the £40,000 limit. 

The slightly more powerful D200 version — with, you’ve guessed it, 200hp — is even worse as it’s a single gramme per km over the 171g/km CO2 band limit, meaning you’ll pay a whopping £945 for the first year’s road tax. 

The P200 petrol turbo has 200g/km emissions, so that means a huge £1,420 for the first year’s tax. No wonder so many Land Rover buyers these days go for the plug-in hybrid version. The PHEV Evoque has an official fuel economy of 201mpg(!) and has emissions of just 32g/km. That means a zero-rate road tax for the first year as a private buyer (although you will have to pay an extra £355 levy as the price tag is over £40,000) and you get up to 39 miles on electric power if you fully charge the battery — it’s about 30 miles in the real world, but that’s enough for most commutes and school runs. For business users, this is the only one that makes sense as the PHEV Evoque attracts only 11% company car tax Benefit in Kind tax. 

The PHEV is also not bad when you take it on a longer run — we’ve seen fuel economy of better than 60mpg on country road spins, although long motorway journeys will see that dip down to more like 40mpg. It’s worth noting that the new BMW X1 PHEV offers a whopping 55-mile electric range on a full charge, and therefore should be more economical on a long run, too.

The Evoque is very safe indeed — Euro NCAP crash-tested it in 2019, and it scored the maximum five-stars for safety, including a 94% rating for adult occupant protection, and 87 per cent for child occupant protection. Both are very good scores.

Standard safety kit includes a rear-view camera, automated emergency braking, drive attention alert, lane-keeping assistance, and front and rear parking sensors. S models come with traffic sign recognition and automatic speed limiter, and radar-guided cruise control while R-Dynamic SE versions get a blind-spot monitor and rear collision alert.

Land Rover’s reputation for reliability and build quality really couldn’t be much worse, and it tends to finish well down the lists of most reliability surveys. A quick scan of the Evoque’s cabin reveals far too many wonky cabin panels for comfort, and while the diesel engines have been around for a while now and are generally quite solid, there will always be worries about faulty electrics, unresponsive touchscreens and fragile gearboxes. 

The Evoque has had lots of recalls, most recently for faulty emergency calling systems, overloaded electrical systems frying the car’s computer chips, incorrect rear seat belt installations, seat material that’s not up to fire code standards, front seat belt issues, incorrect rubber fuel hoses and steering rack issues. It’s not a good read, that list. 

Land Rover has promised to improve its quality and reliability issues, and the Evoque does come with a three-year, unlimited-mileage warranty, which for an extra cost can be extended out to ten years and 100,000-miles. The warranty also covers you for a hire car to get to your destination if you have a breakdown.