High-end SUVs like the 2025 Range Rover Sport PHEV are great in many ways. They handle exceptionally, the inside is usually packed with luxury features, and the British-built vehicles are immensely practical. But there are some areas where luxury vehicles like these have historically struggled. One of these areas is fuel economy.
But history is history, and at the time of writing, it’s 2025. A year in which the PHEV exists. I recently spent some time with a 2025 Range Rover Sport PHEV to see just how good its fuel economy can be. According to the EPA and Range Rover itself, the Sport PHEV has a combined (city and highway) MPG of 21 when going gas-only. The battery, when powering the vehicle alone, is capable of 55 MPGe.
Range Rover makes tracking your MPG easy
If you browse through Range Rover’s infotainment menu, you’ll spot an app called “Eco-Data.” This app serves a few functions. First, it tracks your driving and displays information, such as the number of miles you’re getting per gallon of fuel.
Secondly, it rates your driving based on how economical you are. So if you’re doing an ideal speed while using both the brake and throttle perfectly, you’ll score 100%. Each of these elements is graded out of five, so you can easily see where you need to improve.
Lastly, the app provides tips on how to drive economically. The advice includes not applying the throttle or brake too heavily and maintaining a reasonable speed.
Driving it normally can still hit you in the wallet
If you disregard all of that advice and drive the Range Rover as nature intended (fast and fun), then you’re not going to get the best MPG. While driving the vehicle in my usual style, including some stretches in “Sport Mode,” I averaged between 18 and 19 miles per gallon.
This particular testing period included a good amount of highway driving, so that may have pushed the fuel economy up slightly, but it is still far from ideal and leaves a lot of room for improvement. My “driving score” during this time averaged between 70% and 80%.
It is worth noting that 18 MPG isn’t tremendously bad for a vehicle this size. Especially one packing a turbocharged 3-liter straight six under the hood. However, compared to what this plug-in hybrid can do in terms of fuel economy, 18 MPG is actually pretty dire.
First impressions can be deceiving
The Eco-Data app will save several of your trips, along with the most economical trip so far. That trip is displayed on a chart and gets a little trophy. Because nothing saves gas like healthy competition.
When I received the Range Rover PHEV to test, the “champ” had achieved a staggering 242.4 MPG on a 57.2 mile trip. However, not everything is what it seems at first glance. Looking at the details, the vehicle started the trip with a full battery and spent 51.9 miles of the 57.2 mile journey on battery power alone. Which means that 242 MPG was more likely closer to 24 MPG if you only count when the engine was actually working. After seeing this, and deciding that the Range Rover wasn’t actually the most economical vehicle on the market by a factor of about five, I decided to approach this a little differently.
There are some rules for this hypermiling trip
So, what can you do if you want to get the most out of your gas tank? Well, it’s mostly in how you use the vehicle’s pedals. To test things out, I picked a route running from a spot near Kinderhook in upstate New York to Schenectady. As your MPG varies in different driving scenarios, that route contains a good mix of country roads, highways, and suburbs. This should help us work out a fair average MPG.
I also made sure to drain the vehicle’s battery on the way to the starting point. As the earlier trip shows, a full battery makes a huge difference to fuel consumption, but doesn’t give a fair representation of what the vehicle can actually do. Not everyone wants to charge their PHEV every night, and it’s important to know what sort of mileage you’ll be getting if you use it like a regular old hybrid.
During the trip, I dropped the vehicle into “Eco” mode. This is a simple step that makes everything else easier by limiting things like the throttle response and making sure the vehicle’s gear changes prioritize efficiency rather than acceleration.
The Range Rover Sport PHEV can be pretty economical after all
After around an hour of almost nightmarish concentration and speeds that make me want to apologize to everyone who happened to be on the roads that day, I had my results. I seemingly nailed the driving portion, with a score of 98%. This is 2% better than whoever hit “242 MPG” and represents an almost ideal scenario, with an accelerator score of 4.9/5 being the only blip.
During the test, my MPG peaked at 29.5. This happened as I was leaving the Thruway and heading into the city. A section in the suburbs brought the final fuel economy score down to 29.3 MPG, which is surprising. I thought the continuous stop signs, downhill sections, and slow speeds would put plenty of energy into the battery and push the overall economy closer to 30 MPG, but my hypothesis was incorrect here.
The results are also pretty much in line with the EPA’s predictions, despite me not driving a locked-in 55 mph on a highway for the full trip. Hovering close to 30 MPG also pops the Range Rover Sport PHEV in sedan territory when it comes to fuel economy. That’s not too far our from an ICE Sonata, Civic, or Jetta.
Either way, I’ve tested the Range Rover PHEV enough to come to this conclusion. If you drive like a hooligan you’ll probably hover around 18 MPG. Driving like a nun with deep climate change fears will get you close to 30. Making sure the vehicle is plugged in at the end of each day means you’ll rarely have to visit a gas station. Though your electricity bill will increase a little.
While we focused on the fuel economy here, there’s also plenty to learn about the other features on the 2025 Range Rover PHEV.
