Freelander 8 2026: Price, Specs, Features and Review

The Freelander 8 does not have a price yet, and it is not a Land Rover. Those are the two things most searches about this car get wrong, and both are answerable today: pre-sales open in China on 10 August 2026, and the badge on the nose belongs to a standalone brand that Chery and Jaguar Land Rover spun out of their joint venture in March.

What does exist, in unusual detail for a car that has not gone on sale, is the specification. Below is what has actually been published — dimensions, powertrain, battery, cabin technology — what is still missing, and our read on where this thing is aimed.

How much does the Freelander 8 cost?

No price has been announced. As of 23 July 2026 the manufacturer had confirmed a pre-sale date and nothing else: pricing, production targets and delivery schedules were all still unpublished.

If you have seen a figure of 300,000 yuan, treat it carefully. That number comes from a Chinese-market report placing the car in the 300,000-yuan segment — roughly $44,000 — against rivals like the Li Auto L8 and the Aito M7. It describes where the car will compete, not what it will cost. At least one Western outlet has since printed it as though the car were already “on sale for 300,000 yuan (£33,000)”, which is not what the manufacturer has said.

A European band of €45,000–€55,000 also circulates. We could not trace it to Chery-JLR or to a first-tier outlet, so we are not repeating it as a forecast.

The date that matters is 10 August. Chinese pre-sales almost always come with a pre-sale price, and that will be the first real number attached to this car.

Is the Freelander 8 a Land Rover?

No — and that is the single most misunderstood thing about it.

Freelander was a Land Rover model line, discontinued in 2014 and best remembered as the car that made Land Rover a mainstream European seller. On 31 March 2026, the Chery–JLR joint venture revived the name as an independent new-energy brand, not a Land Rover model. It sits alongside Chery’s other marques — Omoda, Jaecoo, Lepas, iCar — rather than inside Land Rover’s range.

The division of labour is the interesting part. JLR shapes the design; Chery supplies the platform, the electronics and the supply chain. The launch colours were curated by JLR global design director Phil Simmons, and the styling comes from the Concept 97 — named for 1997, the year the original Freelander launched — which reaches production nearly intact, minus the concept’s pillarless reverse-opening rear doors. The diagonal C-pillar that nods to the original’s removable hardtop has been carried into the new brand’s logo.

The plan behind it is not modest: six models in five years, each offered as an EV, a range-extender or a plug-in hybrid, with an extra 3 billion yuan (about $443 million) going into the Changshu plant to build them.

What are the Freelander 8’s specs?

A 5.1-metre, six-seat, range-extended off-roader on an 800V architecture. The published numbers:

Two clarifications worth making, because both are being reported loosely.

The engine never drives the wheels. This is a range-extender, so the 1.5T petrol unit is a generator; the car is driven electrically at all times. One filing-based report gives the engine 105kW of maximum net power rather than 115kW, and both figures are in circulation.

The car does not weigh 3.5 tonnes. It has a gross vehicle weight of 3,495kg — the maximum permitted loaded mass — against a kerb weight of 2,980kg. Coverage describing it as “nearly 3.5 tonnes” has quoted the wrong one of those two numbers.

The one number nobody has published is total system output. A combined 560hp from a twin-motor setup appears in UK coverage; no Chinese-market source we read gives motor outputs at all, and the manufacturer has not confirmed them.

What features does the Freelander 8 have?

The technology package is the pitch, and most of it is standard rather than optional.

The interior detailing is aimed squarely at the Chinese luxury market: physical buttons finished with Clous de Paris hobnail knurling borrowed from watchmaking, dual floating knobs cut from K9 optical crystal with 144 facets, and 256-colour ambient lighting.

Launch paint is three colours — Thermal Lemon, Streamer Silver and Twilight Purple — with the First Edition also offered in a matte Flowing Silver with a nano-ceramic lacquer. One report lists the First Edition in three trims, Pro, Max and Max+; we have seen that in a single source and flag it as unconfirmed.

A later spec listing also describes three differential-lock functions rather than the front-lock-plus-e-LSD arrangement given at the official reveal, so the off-road hardware may vary by trim.

Freelander 8 review: what the numbers say

Nobody has driven this car, so treat what follows as an analysis of the specification rather than a verdict on how it behaves. Here is what the numbers make clear.

The positioning is more interesting than the badge. A five-metre-plus, six-seat, air-sprung EREV with Huawei’s current driver-assistance stack, aimed at the 300,000-yuan bracket, is not competing with Land Rover — it is competing with Li Auto and Aito, the two brands that built that segment. The Range Rover Evoque, JLR’s own product in the same market, is a case study in why: it lists at 429,800 yuan and dealers have been clearing it at closer to 212,000 yuan on the road. The joint venture’s answer to that problem is not a cheaper Land Rover, it is a different brand with a Chinese supply chain behind it.

The battery choice is the most telling engineering decision. 60.331kWh is a large pack for a range-extender — enough for 221km of WLTC electric running, which covers the daily use case entirely — and pairing it with an 800V architecture and 350kW peak charging is unusual in this class, because an EREV owner is not supposed to need fast charging. Building the car so it can charge like an EV anyway suggests Freelander expects most owners to run it as one, with the 1.5T engine reserved for range anxiety rather than daily duty. That is an expensive way to build an EREV, and it is the clearest signal that the pure-electric version reported to be following is the real target.

The weak spots in the spec sheet are the ones you would expect from a brand launching its first car. There is no published system output, no 0-100km/h time, no efficiency figure and no trim-by-trim equipment list — for a vehicle entering pre-sale in two weeks, that is a lot of blank space. The kerb weight is the number to watch: 2,980kg before passengers is heavy enough that the 221km electric range and any efficiency claims will be doing real work to stand up in the real world.

The strategy is the strongest part. Every model is being engineered as a “1+3” — one China version plus left-hand-drive international, EU and right-hand-drive variants developed in parallel, aimed at certification in more than 180 markets. That is not how a China-only brand is built. It is how you plan to export, and it explains the JLR half of the partnership better than the styling does.

Which cars does the Freelander 8 compete with?

Two different sets of rivals, because the car is two things at once: a six-seat range-extended family SUV, and a boxy off-roader. It is priced into the first group and styled into the second, and its Chinese name — 神行者 8, the name the original Freelander carried in China — is being used to sell both readings.

The rivals named in Chinese coverage

These are the two cars the Freelander 8 has been explicitly benchmarked against, and they set the price bracket.

On paper the Freelander is the biggest of the three in every dimension, which is the argument its own marketing leans on. Note the powertrains are almost identical on output — 113, 112 and 115kW of range-extender — so the differences will come from the battery, the 800V charging and the software, not the engine.

The off-road NEV set

This is where the “all-terrain” framing actually puts it: boxy, diff-locked, plug-in or range-extended off-roaders, most of them running Huawei’s driver-assistance stack.

The Mengshi M817 is the one to watch. It is the same idea executed a year earlier — a luxury Chinese off-roader whose selling point is Huawei’s assisted driving — and it sits exactly where the Freelander 8 is expected to land on price.

The big six-seat family NEVs

Larger, more expensive, and where the Freelander 8 ends up if its price lands at the top of expectations rather than the bottom.

Outside China

Coverage aimed at export markets has lined the Freelander 8 up against the Hyundai Santa Fe and BYD’s Sealion 8, which describes the segment rather than a confirmed export price. The more useful comparison for a European or Middle Eastern buyer is the one the brand invites and then declines to make: the Land Rover Defender and Discovery occupy the same conceptual space, at prices the Freelander 8 is unlikely to approach.

⚠️ All prices above are China-market list prices observed on 27 July 2026 and move constantly — discounting in this segment is heavy, and the Freelander 8’s own price is still unpublished. Treat the table as a map of the neighbourhood, not a shopping list.

Where will the Freelander 8 be sold outside China?

The Middle East is first, with a left-hand-drive version arriving between the end of 2026 and early 2027. Europe has been confirmed by the brand as a target market, and JLR’s partner has stated that international, EU and right-hand-drive versions are being developed alongside the Chinese car rather than adapted afterwards.

There is no confirmed UK on-sale date, no European price and no announced dealer network yet. If you want a Chinese-built family SUV with a European badge on the nose today, our Jaecoo 7 review covers a car from the same parent company that is already on sale, with prices and running costs you can actually check.