Thanks to a unitized body, the next-gen Land Rover Defender comes close to the Discovery V in terms of mechanical construction and is assembled at the same factory in Slovakia. As a result, the Discovery now sells rather poorly despite last year’s facelift. In order to prevent the Defender from cannibalizing sales, Land Rover could be switching the Discovery to a new platform soon.
Rumor has it that the sixth generation of the SUV will be based on Electric Modular Architecture (EMA), Something the company considers using for the future Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque/Velar as well. The platform has originally been designed as all-electric, but the company claims it supports IC engines, too. This leads us to think that the new Discovery might end up a hybrid.
As for the next-gen Defender, it will make use of the old Modular Longitudal Architecture (MLA). The company announced it two years ago for Jaguar and Land rover hybrids and all-electric cars, but later found that it was not as good a fit for electrified powertrains as it could be.
Later on, an announcement was made that Jaguar would switch to producing only full-electric cars, while Land Rover would transition to using an innovative EMA platform. Aside from the Defender, the next-gen Range Rover and Range Rover Sport will utilize the MLA chassis and tech.
That said. the current-gen Defender (see video) is still very young as cars go. The newly announced 130 version will be 5.1 meters long and offer three seat rows, and rumors abound that a top specification is also in development in order to compete with the Mercedes-AMG G 63.