Thread: The "New" Defender, ...Your Thoughts?

Originally Posted by steane

If there is going to be a new one, then I don't think we'll see it much before the end of this decade. I believe the delay has more to do with the massive challenges faced by new vehicle designers now and the escalating and massive costs involved in designing and building an all new vehicle. Things have changed dramatically in just the last two or three years in this regard.

A lot more is going to change in the next decade and any vehicle being designed now is going to be different to what we are used to or even expecting.

Diesel, thanks in part to VW, is now a dirty word and there are car companies saying their ongoing development is a dead end, and that they will be concentrating on electric and small capacity turbo charged petrol engines and eventually just electric engines.

So while Land Rover could fit a diesel to an all new Defender, the big question is how obsolete will it be if it's not fully or partially electric drive?

There is a massive push by most car makers to bring electric vehicles to market. VW is revamping it's entire business model and has announced that it wants 30 EVs on the market by 2025.

MB are saying similar things. This technology is going to accelerate very rapidly (pardon the pun). We ain't seen nothing yet and what we have seen recently is pretty damn amazing.

Then we have autonomous vehicles. Countries are putting legislation in place to deal with them now. Car makers are buying up ride sharing companies like Uber so they can partly control their autonomous vehicle markets. This is another technology that is here right now. Google is buying into and investing heavily in autonomous vehicles. Autonomous cars are going to be here tomorrow.

Much the same is happening with safety and connectivity tech, especially connectivity.

What car maker is going to start with a clean sheet design and not feature these new technologies and directions? If they don't the new vehicle will be obsolete before it hits the market.

So by default, I am sure the days of simple, hose out, commercial style 4X4s are all but over and any new Defender isn't going to go there, simply because it won't be possible. Well you might be able to hose it out but it will be far from being a simple vehicle.

A few years ago JLR probably had the new Defender project on the board and ready to go. Nothing too major, nothing too difficult. But it's changed in the last few years and now they have no choice but to build something that is seriously cutting edge so that it is future proof. They are now creating this new vehicle at a time when the industry is on the cusp of massive change.

The next Defender, if it happens, could quite possibly be the most amazing 4X4 we've yet seen. I seriously doubt it will be anything remotely like the Defender we've known. That's not a JLR or rich man's conspiracy, it's just the evolution of the MV and the cycle is quickly gaining momentum.

Steane, Just have to say mate, what an EXCELLENT post you have written. A lot of stuff there, I hadn't even thought of.
Definitely food for thought. Pickles.

If Steane is correct in his assessments, I think it suggests why a "new" Defender will never be built nor necessary.
By the time the technology, legislation and viability of this type of concept comes to pass, the very concept of 4WD ing as we know it. (what most people buy a 4WD for), will be essentially irrelevant.
IMO the "need" for another high tech super capable, domestic market 4WD no longer exists. There is no longer in this country and arguably, rest of world, where such a vehicle in the domestic market is required, that has not been adequately catered for.

Clean sheets are good, yet, realistically if you took a Defender chassis and strapped some proper diffs and axles in, a decent ABS Traction control in, put an engine and box from the D4 in,then came up with a new monocoque body to strap on top which could accommodate the airbags etc, you would be 90% there.
Leather or cloth options,sound system connectivity.
Pretty much done and that's using around half the available components LR have already developed and proven.

Originally Posted by steane

If there is going to be a new one, then I don't think we'll see it much before the end of this decade. I believe the delay has more to do with the massive challenges faced by new vehicle designers now and the escalating and massive costs involved in designing and building an all new vehicle. Things have changed dramatically in just the last two or three years in this regard.

A lot more is going to change in the next decade and any vehicle being designed now is going to be different to what we are used to or even expecting.

Diesel, thanks in part to VW, is now a dirty word and there are car companies saying their ongoing development is a dead end, and that they will be concentrating on electric and small capacity turbo charged petrol engines and eventually just electric engines.

So while Land Rover could fit a diesel to an all new Defender, the big question is how obsolete will it be if it's not fully or partially electric drive?

There is a massive push by most car makers to bring electric vehicles to market. VW is revamping it's entire business model and has announced that it wants 30 EVs on the market by 2025.

MB are saying similar things. This technology is going to accelerate very rapidly (pardon the pun). We ain't seen nothing yet and what we have seen recently is pretty damn amazing.

Then we have autonomous vehicles. Countries are putting legislation in place to deal with them now. Car makers are buying up ride sharing companies like Uber so they can partly control their autonomous vehicle markets. This is another technology that is here right now. Google is buying into and investing heavily in autonomous vehicles. Autonomous cars are going to be here tomorrow.

Much the same is happening with safety and connectivity tech, especially connectivity.

What car maker is going to start with a clean sheet design and not feature these new technologies and directions? If they don't the new vehicle will be obsolete before it hits the market.

So by default, I am sure the days of simple, hose out, commercial style 4X4s are all but over and any new Defender isn't going to go there, simply because it won't be possible. Well you might be able to hose it out but it will be far from being a simple vehicle.

A few years ago JLR probably had the new Defender project on the board and ready to go. Nothing too major, nothing too difficult. But it's changed in the last few years and now they have no choice but to build something that is seriously cutting edge so that it is future proof. They are now creating this new vehicle at a time when the industry is on the cusp of massive change.

The next Defender, if it happens, could quite possibly be the most amazing 4X4 we've yet seen. I seriously doubt it will be anything remotely like the Defender we've known. That's not a JLR or rich man's conspiracy, it's just the evolution of the MV and the cycle is quickly gaining momentum.

Agreed...mostly. Which is why a new solar/electric 4X4 makes sense, why New production of Defender has finished and why current Defender will continue to grow in value and be sought after...until the end of diesel. It's still a way off, but it will happen.

Although I still think there is far too much emphasis on the developed world / urban market. It ignores half the worlds markets and what Land Rovers were built for. I dont agree that it's all urbanity now.

If Land Rover can be a leader in new clean technology, especially that which is self powered and regenerative like solar/electric, they would also take the less developed half of the world by storm and potentially introduce a new kind of heavy duty vehicle suitable for the still remote 50% of the planet.

This is what I'd like to hear more about from Gerry McGovern. Reverse engineering from urban lightweight vehicles is not as successful as reverse engineering from heavy duty platforms. This is where I think Land Rover have gone wrong and also why a new Defender won't happen.

Originally Posted by spudboy

That's an interesting thought that I've not thought about!

How come 'real' 4WDs have a transfer case, and not just a couple of low-low gears to assist in tricky offroad situations? Would be a lot cheaper to throw in 2 more cogs to a gearbox than build a whole extra transfer case.

Reliability?

Harks back to the days of 3/4 speed gearbox's,to get a good spread of gears you needed a splitter box. Pat

Steane makes some good points but remember that personal vehicles play just one part behind engine development.The world runs on trucks,simple as that,if the trucks stop the world stops and I can't see long haul trucks driving across Oz and the USA running on solar/batteries/hope regardless of what the enviro's say about diesel.I'm all for electric,a defender running four independent traction motors powered by a small T/D engine and battery pack optimized to run at a given rpm would give startling performance with regeneration braking thrown as well.Image not having two gearbox's,a clutch,two diff's,two drive shafts,CV's,axles,diff housing etc,the maintenance would be an oil change with air and fuel filter without all the other things to go wrong,diff locks?,no need,turbo lag,nil,power off idle,100% from zero rev's,were do I sign up. Pat

Pat I'm with you there but the all Electric Dawn is already lighting the Horizon.

If you can, watch episode 4 of the current series of TopGear (which I am quite enjoying tbh). They drive the Tesla Model X. It has a range of 250 miles, can be charged in 30 minutes at one of their quick charge points and it out drags a Dodge Challenger Hellcat (700hp) EASILY.

It will also drive itself (mostly) and Tesla say in autonomous mode it is significantly safer than when being driven by a human.

This is today.

5 years from now the price will be halved, the range tripled and it will be fully autonomous.

For trucks it will be easy compared to cars. It makes sense for trucks to be autonomous and electric. They have way more options to package batteries on a truck than a car. Give it a few years and we'll start seeing them here.

This is all going to happen a lot quicker than most people are thinking IMO.

Once nations start legislating against internal combustion engines it will be be electric everything. And that legislating is already underway.

I heard from a source that I trust that planning is already underway for autonomous vehicles in Melbourne and the city will become a conventional car free zone. The plan is to expand that zone further out over time into the suburbs. No person will drive cars in these areas.

The younger generations don't get hung up on vehicles and vehicle ownership like we do. A car is just an appliance and a means of getting around. A very experienced industry expert that I know well (ex VACC currently an industry journo and editor of one of the larger auto sites) believes that vehicle ownership will largely disappear in the coming years. People will hold up their smart phone to hail vacant autonomous cars and they'll take you where you want to go, including between major cities or on a family holiday. Hence the big car makers buying ride sharing businesses now.

This is the world that JLR has to design their new Defender for, not the world we live in right now.

Originally Posted by steane

A few years ago JLR probably had the new Defender project on the board and ready to go. Nothing too major, nothing too difficult. But it's changed in the last few years and now they have no choice but to build something that is seriously cutting edge so that it is future proof. They are now creating this new vehicle at a time when the industry is on the cusp of massive change.

You raise some interesting points, but this cutting edge technology usually begins its life at the top of the tree and works its way down to the lower-end models as it becomes more viable to do so. Until we start seeing electric motors or at least some form of electric assistance in Range Rovers, I'd say there's a near zero chance of it being a feature in a Defender by 2020.

McGovern has described the three pillars of Land Rover's branding approach as:

• Range Rover - Luxury
• Discovery - Leisure
• Defender - Entry-level, dual purpose

I think the delay of the next Defender is down to prioritisation more than anything. The focus in recent years has been on the 'Leisure' pillar, with the Discovery Sport and Disco 5 taking the spotlight. These are high volume, high margin vehicles that will fund the development of the lower cost models such as Defender.

Another major reason for the delay is JLR's strategic decision in 2015 to invest GBP 1 Billion in a new facility in Slovakia, construction of which is due to commence this year. The first cars aren't due to roll off the production line until 2018. Being a lower cost facility capable of producing 150,000 vehicles per year, you can bet your bottom dollar that the next Defenders will begin life there. It wouldn't make sense for JLR to tool up a production line elsewhere just to release a Defender earlier.

Based on what I've read from McGovern, and my own best guesses, I think the next Defender will be:

• Offered in a range of wheelbases and trim levels, from basic commercial utilities to more comfortable family adventure vehicles.
• Be the most comfortable, technologically advanced Defender ever.
• Feature the Ingenium engines predominantly, with an optional V6 diesel and *fingers crossed* performance petrol V8 (because I like silly things).
• Cost around the same as the existing Defender, so as to position it appropriately in the JLR lineup

Oh, and they'll sell like hot cakes because everything JLR has touched in the last decade has turned to gold.

Of course, this is just my own take on things and I could be totally wrong

Cheers