Land Rover Range Rover Evoque review _ Consumer Reports

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe Land Rover Range Rover Evoke looks just like a concept car that rolled straight off the auto show floor here at Consumer Reports we don't score styling but we got to say this looks distinctive it looks cool thing is we do score practicality and there's a reason why you don't see that many Concept cars out on the road let's start with visibility there's a narrow band of glass that wraps around the whole car and a sharply Rising Belt Line front visibility isn't horrible it's helped by well-shaped windshield pillars but the large side mirrors on the doors they really block your views in the corners and the rear window it is Tiny thank goodness there's a standard backup camera Whimsy got the best of some of the controls the shifter is a hockey puck like cylinder that rises out of the console when you start the car looks cool kind of fussy what's really finicky though is the touchscreen radio takes lots of Taps on the screen to move through pages to get to what you want also a lot of the on-screen fonts are quite small to read the evoke has a fulllength see-through roof that helps make The Snug cabin feel much less claustrophobic however the roof doesn't open for ventilation the evokes cabin is very snug in front though there's a really wide center console it takes up knee room and there's not much left foot room however the cabin is very nicely furnished with lots of high quality materials the firmly padded front seats are very aggressively bolstered it's great if you fit in them most people won't they'll find them narrow and they'll find them uncomfortable access is tight getting into the back seat with a small opening there's just enough room in the back seat for adults the cargo area it's pretty modest for an SUV too so the evoke falls short in practicality but what's it like to drive well here the news gets quite a bit better the evoke is powered by a Ford Source 2 L turbocharged 4 cylinder you'd think such a tiny engine would be overwhelmed by this car but it's not actually acceleration times are quite quick and few econom is pretty good the ride can be pretty stiff over bad roads with pronounced kicks from the big 19-in tires those tires also contribute quite a bit to road noise especially coming in from the back of the cabin handling is a mixed bag though there's plenty of grip here and there's not much body Row in the corners problem is the steering doesn't feel quite right the effort's quite heavy and it's got almost a sticky feel on Center to it the artificial waiting well it robs away some of the driving fun what really isn't Fun is emergency handling in our avoidance maneuver the evoke hopped around sometimes lifting a wheel also going around a corner if you lift it off the throttle to slow down sometimes the tail would slide out the evoke really should handle better better in these situations traditional Land Rovers are known for their off-road capability and the evoke has more capability than most sporty small SUVs that said the evoke does not have a low range but it does have programmable modes for its all-wheel drive system and pretty good ground clearance it could struggle its way up our difficult Rock Hill but it's really better off in the mud or on grass or on dirt trails fashion statements don't come cheap and neither does the evoke ours cost nearly $46,000 it's easy to push the sticker up over 50 so sure it looks great but that comes at a high price in more ways than one it also doesn't help that handling especially emergency handling really should be betterthe Land Rover Range Rover Evoke looks just like a concept car that rolled straight off the auto show floor here at Consumer Reports we don't score styling but we got to say this looks distinctive it looks cool thing is we do score practicality and there's a reason why you don't see that many Concept cars out on the road let's start with visibility there's a narrow band of glass that wraps around the whole car and a sharply Rising Belt Line front visibility isn't horrible it's helped by well-shaped windshield pillars but the large side mirrors on the doors they really block your views in the corners and the rear window it is Tiny thank goodness there's a standard backup camera Whimsy got the best of some of the controls the shifter is a hockey puck like cylinder that rises out of the console when you start the car looks cool kind of fussy what's really finicky though is the touchscreen radio takes lots of Taps on the screen to move through pages to get to what you want also a lot of the on-screen fonts are quite small to read the evoke has a fulllength see-through roof that helps make The Snug cabin feel much less claustrophobic however the roof doesn't open for ventilation the evokes cabin is very snug in front though there's a really wide center console it takes up knee room and there's not much left foot room however the cabin is very nicely furnished with lots of high quality materials the firmly padded front seats are very aggressively bolstered it's great if you fit in them most people won't they'll find them narrow and they'll find them uncomfortable access is tight getting into the back seat with a small opening there's just enough room in the back seat for adults the cargo area it's pretty modest for an SUV too so the evoke falls short in practicality but what's it like to drive well here the news gets quite a bit better the evoke is powered by a Ford Source 2 L turbocharged 4 cylinder you'd think such a tiny engine would be overwhelmed by this car but it's not actually acceleration times are quite quick and few econom is pretty good the ride can be pretty stiff over bad roads with pronounced kicks from the big 19-in tires those tires also contribute quite a bit to road noise especially coming in from the back of the cabin handling is a mixed bag though there's plenty of grip here and there's not much body Row in the corners problem is the steering doesn't feel quite right the effort's quite heavy and it's got almost a sticky feel on Center to it the artificial waiting well it robs away some of the driving fun what really isn't Fun is emergency handling in our avoidance maneuver the evoke hopped around sometimes lifting a wheel also going around a corner if you lift it off the throttle to slow down sometimes the tail would slide out the evoke really should handle better better in these situations traditional Land Rovers are known for their off-road capability and the evoke has more capability than most sporty small SUVs that said the evoke does not have a low range but it does have programmable modes for its all-wheel drive system and pretty good ground clearance it could struggle its way up our difficult Rock Hill but it's really better off in the mud or on grass or on dirt trails fashion statements don't come cheap and neither does the evoke ours cost nearly $46,000 it's easy to push the sticker up over 50 so sure it looks great but that comes at a high price in more ways than one it also doesn't help that handling especially emergency handling really should be better\n"