Land Rover has trademarked the Road Rover name, suggesting the British upscale SUV maker is getting set to roll out a car-like model.
Of course, it could also be an acknowledgement that the majority of Land Rovers sold are driven mostly on paved roads, even though they are engineered for serious off-road use. We saw Land Rover make a shift toward an on-road bias last year with the introduction of the softly-styled Range Rover Velar.
One possibility is the name will be used for Land Rover's first EV, rumoured to be on its way before 2020 to challenge cars like the Tesla Model S and Porsche Taycan for performance and driving range.
Jaguar Land Rover has previously revealed that all of its new models from the 2020 model year on will be electrified, while it has already launched a PHEV version of the Range Rover Sport.
Road Rover is not an entirely new moniker for Land Rover: According to AutoExpress, the company applied the name to a series of 1950s car prototypes with some off-road ability that, had they made it to production, could have been the industry's first crossovers.
The idea of a Land Rover car brings to mind other distinctly car-like crossovers, such as the 2018 Audi A4 Allroad and the Mercedes-Benz E-Class All Terrain. But then, Land Rover arguably already has a whole range of car models in that the SUV maker and its corporate sibling Jaguar share much of their engineering.
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