Tata’s 44-mpg hybrid Land Rover SUV draws rave reviews

Land Rover, the Tata-owned British luxury SUV maker, has stunned critics and drawn rave reviews for its new hybrid model the RR Sport, which is said to be just as good as the best petrol and diesel models even as it gives 44 miles per gallon.

The car is expected to make owning an SUV, reviled in recent years for its gas-guzzling engine, once more fashionable and politically correct by Western standards.

Land Rover sales were showing negative growth in Europe and the US, even as they boomed in major emerging economies like China.

''Land Rover has achieved a miracle on the scale of loaves and fishes,'' gushed the motoring correspondent of the UK's Mirror newspaper. ''This monster lump of world-beating technology can return more than 44 miles to every gallon and accelerate as swiftly as a V8.''

Silent and plush, it has the same remarkable mountain-climbing abilities all-terrain capability as Land Rover's other models.

The RR Sport hybrid can reach 60 mph in 6.5 seconds, touch 140 mph, shift seamlessly through an eight-speed gearbox and kick out 335 horsepower.

Clever brakes harvest energy for the batteries and when you run out of charge the V6 diesel engine silently takes over so there's never any range anxiety.

The engine automatically switches off at junctions and traffic lights and while coasting with no throttle to save fuel.

''Most miraculous of all is that you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference behind the wheel because this hybrid feels just as smooth and punchy as a 4.4-litre top-drawer Autobiography,'' says the Mirror.

''The batteries don't take up any interior space and there's even a full-size spare wheel ... I can confirm the modest engineers and workers at the Birmingham factory are rewriting the technology rule book,'' says the correspondent.