If you find Robert Llewellyn’s face is familiar, that’s because it probably is to you. He hosted quite a few different television series for various networks, some of which involved building vehicles out of scrap parts, and has now started a YouTube channel where he posts videos of his first-hand experiences with new developments in green tech – it’s called Fully Charged.
Not all are about cars, but quite a few are, and the most recent one to be uploaded features the all-electric Land Rover Defender.
As you may have heard, it is a fully-working and fully-capable variant of the familiar off-roader, the only differences over the diesel being its limited range of “around fifty miles” and the lack of noise.
The group doesn’t plan to make a battery-powered Defender, and in fact it wants to replace it with a much more modern successor. However, while it’s a mere prototype for various technologies, you’ll see in the video that it works perfectly well off-road and can even navigate shallow streams.
It’s said to be even more capable because its powerplant doesn’t need air to function – wading depth may not be necessarily improved, but bow waves certainly become less of a problem. Also, the constant, seamless and gear-less nature of the powertrain help with traction off-road too, making the vehicle less likely to bog down.
By Andrei Nedelea
VIDEO