Once upon a time, the Land Rover Freelander was the best-selling four-wheel-drive vehicle in Europe. It held that title for five consecutive years. Now, nearly three decades after its 1997 debut, the name returns, reborn as an independent electric brand built in China but coming to Europe.
Together with Chery
Jaguar Land Rover and Chinese automaker Chery have officially launched the Freelander brand, and the first production model now has a name: the Freelander 8. JLR and Chery have been manufacturing vehicles together in China since 2012, but this marks something fundamentally different: a new standalone marque, wholly oriented around new energy vehicles.
Freelander’s global headquarters are in Shanghai, while the design center works alongside JLR’s historic Gaydon studio in England. This is no longer a Land Rover model. It is a brand in its own right. Six new models are planned over the next five years.
Defender looks
The Freelander 8 continues the boxy design language first established by the Concept 97, shown at the brand launch in Shanghai and styled by Gerry McGovern, JLR’s ex-Chief Creative Officer.
The production model retains an upright silhouette with a closed front surface, rectangular lighting units, and straight character lines along the side profile. A roof-mounted lidar unit is integrated into the design. It functions as a visual reminder of just how much intelligent hardware is packed in.
At over 5,100 mm in length with a wheelbase exceeding 3,000 mm, the Freelander 8 sits firmly in full-size premium SUV territory, far removed from the compact-sized vehicle that won over European buyers in the early 2000s. Inside, the six-seat (2+2+2) layout is retained, with a floating screen and remote display at the center of the dashboard.
World’s first
The Chinese team led the product and smart-technology development, while the JLR side focused on design aesthetics and preserving the brand’s luxury heritage. The result is a technology specification that reads like a who ‘s-who of China’s most advanced suppliers.
Huawei provides the Qiankun ADS 5.0 intelligent driving system, standard across the entire lineup. The Freelander 8 is also among the world’s first production models to feature Huawei’s 896-channel lidar.
That sensor feeds directly into an i-ATS intelligent all-terrain system, which combines lidar data with binocular camera input for terrain recognition and adaptive driving strategy planning across multiple off-road scenarios.
The computing platform runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8397 automotive-grade chip – again claimed as a world first for a production vehicle, and offering a threefold increase in processing power over the previous generation.
Reinforced underbody armour
CATL supplies a dedicated battery co-developed for all-terrain use, with 6C peak charging capability and a rated peak charging power of 350 kW, as well as reinforced underbody armor.
The underlying platform is Chery’s iMax architecture, supporting pure EV, plug-in hybrid, and range-extended powertrains from a single 800V base. In China, the Freelander 8 will standardize on an 800V range-extended high-voltage system. The model has already cleared production validation, following a program of extreme durability and environmental testing.
Europe is in the plan
The Freelander 8 is scheduled to debut in China in the second half of 2026, followed by a global rollout. The European market is explicitly targeted from day one.
Freelander CEO Wei Lan was unambiguous at the brand launch: “From its very first day of existence, every Freelander product is conceived and calibrated for the diverse demands of markets across the world. We are not exporting a Chinese car to the world, but we are building a world car, for the world, from the very beginning.”
Since all vehicles are built in Changshu, China, they remain subject to EU additional tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, which, in Chery’s case, were set at 20.7% on top of the standard 10% import duty.
That is a material handicap in a market where pricing pressure is already intense, and where the car seems to compete with its family member, the Defender. European customers who feel nostalgic will need to wait until 2027.
Freelander plans to release six new vehicles over five years, roughly one every six months. Whether European buyers will accept a Chinese-built vehicle wearing a Land Rover pedigree badge will be the real test. As a standalone brand, it hasn’t been confirmed whether JLR dealers in Europe will help distribute the newcomer.
