My 93-year-old grandmother lives on the near side of Illinois and doesn’t get out much, so my family decides to spend Easter with her. I slave over a hot laptop to conjure up a Honey Baked Ham and fixin’s. All we need is our version of Uber Eats. Range Rover provides that in the 2025 Sport Autobiography…plug-in hybrid. It’s bougie, but it delivers.

Sport or not, it looks immense feasting on its power plug in my driveway. While buffed and sleek with a floating black roof and retractable door handles, it keeps iconic Range Rover style epitomized by a flat hood, thick slanted rear pillars and gently sloping roof. Our Autobiography edition looks especially naughty painted Carpathian Gray with black and bronze accents – all over 23” dark wheels with carbon inserts.

My grandma’s neighbors will think some Hollywood potentate arrived – nothing subtle here.

But royalty would ride proud behind screens for instruments and infotainment hung like art pieces on the precisely stitched dash. I’d prefer knobs for volume and tuning, but haptic feedback and vastly simplified menus are improvements. They work with the wide head-up display and plethora of crash avoidance systems. This princely chariot has off-road cruise control, but no hands-off system. Sacrifices.

Long hours swipe by riding atop soft leather thrones with heat, ventilation, and massagers up front; heat and ventilation behind; and while gripping a beautifully stitched heated steering wheel. A sueded headliner, panoramic glass roof, and saturating Meridian audio system add pleasures – as do four-zone automatic climate control and noise cancelling headrests. A refrigerated console compartment keeps my sodas cold.

Clicking heels onto the Interstate, it’s clear this will be more like traveling by private jet than primitive Jeep. There is a Sport mode that tightens the adaptive air suspension, steering, and throttle for those who want to throw the Range Rover’s 5,000 lbs. around, but I thought Comfort mode would be more sensible as it wafts like a Bentley. The Terrain Response System configures its powertrain for varying conditions like mud and snow.

I’ll save you all of the analogies to power, smoothness, and silence, but it’s all evident. The gas portion is a 3.0-liter inline six-cylinder engine connected to an eight-speed automatic transmission and torque-vectoring all-wheel-drive. Add the hybrid system and I giggle rapaciously as the big truck leaps up the on-ramp with 542 horsepower and 590 lb.-ft. of torque. 0-60 mph comes and goes in 5.3 seconds. Good riddance, peasants!

We’re clearing cornfields at a dizzying pace, but this Range Rover is also happy as a city dweller. Coming off the plug, it travels up to 53 miles before the engine fires up. A replenish via DC fast charger takes an hour (or about 6 hours by 240v charger). Expect a frugal 53-MPGe. That, and you get a HEMI’s worth of power and torque. Rear steering allows it to maneuver in and out of tight garages like a truck half its size.

My grandmother has about 15 acres of fields and trails on the Vermillion River, and I’m tempted to try getting it stuck, but instead stick to being sensible. She enjoys her fast feast…and so do we.

Range Rover Sports weren’t always as suitable for visiting Grandma as tackling trails, but this one revels in doing both. It’s pricey, though. Base Range Rover Sports start at a cheeky $83,700, but our Autobiography plug-in reaches $128,865. If this isn’t your cup of Earl Grey, consider the Mercedes-Benz GLE 450e, BMW X5 xDrive50e, and Audi Q5 plug-in hybrid.

Storm Forward!

Send comments to Casey at AutoCasey@aol.com; follow him on YouTube @AutoCasey.