Jeep Renegade vs Land Rover Discovery Sport

What's the difference?

Rugged, dependable and good off-road are the most obvious qualities of the Trailhawk. It stands out from the rest of the mini-SUVs by being able to do the S and the U with plenty of vigour.

It's just a shame that its on-road manners can't match that of its big brother, the Cherokee. Unless you're planning on proper off-roading, the Trailhawk might not be quite what you're looking for.

The Land Rover Discovery Sport P300e has a beautiful and practical cabin space. The powertrain didn't always convince me on the road but it does offer decent economy, if you charge it often.

The media system left a lot to be desired and having to pay around $15K extra for all of the customisations means it's not as affordable as what it initially seems. Still, if you’re looking for a plug-in hybrid with a great cabin and on-road looks, this is a good option.

In what is absolutely not a coincidence, the Renegade immediately conjures up the Wrangler. Upright grille from the Willys Jeep (references abound here), round headlights, squared off wheel arches to mimic the Wrangler's guards, short overhangs and big rear view mirrors.

The 17-inch wheels look completely lost in the wheelarches which are even more cavernous owing to the Trailhawk's 50mm of extra ride height. The wheels are also a bit cheap looking but will probably survive the belting the car is intended to take.

Less rugged is the interior, despite a fairly self-conscious effort to make it look and feel chunky. The front seats are flat and unsupportive with the rears just as lacklustre making sure everyone is sliding around together. Luckily, front passengers get a dash-mounted grab handle.

It seems quite well put together, however, but with carpets and easily-marked plastics, you'll hope your passengers don't bring the mud in with them too often. And the "Since 1941" stamped into the steering wheel can go.

The dashboard is reasonably clear and has plenty of information to share via the screen between the dials but whoever thought marking the redline with a water splash graphic in bright orange should probably rethink their design decisions.

Storage is limited to two cupholders up front, door pockets in each door and nets on the front seat backs.

The updated Disco Sport gets new underpinnings which are shared with the Range Rover Evoque.

The body has seen a minor facelift but honestly, it’s so slight only die-hard fans will notice anything different. Overall, it still has the styling that people know and love.

It’s once you head inside that the facelift becomes far more apparent. Gone is the more traditional looking e-shifter and in its place is a rather nubby-looking one.

The dashboard looks more streamlined and features wider padded accents and in our test model, we have the Oyster and Black upholstery which does make it look quite luxurious. There are a few too many blank spaces for me personally but it looks slick.

Accentuating the dashboard is a floating-effect multimedia system and a large digital instrument cluster – both of which look great but there are no other control buttons or dials. I’m not a fan of the fact that you’re 100 per cent reliant on the tech screens and I'll explain why in the Practicality section.

The optioned panoramic roof makes the cabin feel airy and it's cool that it has a memory function – it will close when you turn off the car but reopen upon starting again.

The Discovery Sport is offered in four grades and the model on test in this review is the plug-in hybrid mid-level P300e.

The P300e is priced from $102,125 before on road costs but the addition of the plug-in hybrid powertrain means that it is actually $8855 more expensive than the flagship HSE.

In terms of its rivals, the P300e sits towards the middle of the line-up with the Volvo XC60 Recharge Plus PHEV coming in as the most affordable at $92,990 before on-road costs, then the Lexus NX450+ PHEV at $93,498. Sitting at the more expensive is the Audi Q5 55 TFSIe at $106,600 and then the BMW X3 xDrive30e M Sport PHEV at $111,800.

However, our test model does have a few optioned extras which ups the price tag and its position in the pack.

Those options include:

- A Technology Pack for $4700 which adds a digital rearview mirror, head-up display, and a 360-degree camera system with wade sensors.

- A fixed panoramic roof for $3040.

- Upgraded Meridian Surround Sound System for $2220.

- Upgraded 20-inch alloy wheels for $2080.

- Heated front seats for $860.

- Home charging cable for $520.

- Titanium mesh trim for $420.

All of that brings the grand total to $117,290, before on roads. Which is no small lump of change for what is essentially just a baby Land Rover.

Standard luxury and practical features include powered front seats with a three-position memory function for the driver, synthetic leather upholstery, keyless entry, push-button start, powered tailgate, temporary spare-tyre, and dual-zone climate control.

Technology includes an 11.4-inch touchscreen multimedia system, 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, Android Auto, wireless charging pad, Bluetooth connectivity, and DAB+ Digital Radio.

The update also sees wireless connectivity for Apple CarPlay, an Amazon Alexa app, as well as new USB-C ports, as opposed to USB-A ports from the previous model.

The Trailhawk is powered by Fiat's 2.4-litre four naturally-aspirated four-cylinder producing 129 kW and 230 Nm. Jeep reckons you'll get 7.5L/100km on the combined cycle. Our mostly city driving with a longish motorway run produced an 11.0L/100km average over a week.

The transmission is a nine-speed ZF automatic driving all four wheels.

The Trailhawk also has Jeep's five mode Selec-Terrain system which should cover pretty much every eventuality – Auto, Sport, Mud, Sand and, just for the Trailhawk, Rock. The Trailhawk is rated to tow 400kg unbraked and 907kg braked.

The Discovery Sport P300e has a 1.5-litre, three-cylinder plug-in hybrid turbo-petrol engine with an eight-speed auto transmission and is an all-wheel drive.

The engine produces a combined power output of 227kW and 540Nm of torque. On paper, it’s punchy and can do a 0-100km/h sprint in 6.6 seconds but in practice, it’s not always great at using that power.

The Trailhawk name suggest that things are going to get muddy – compared to the rest of the range, the range-topper rides 50mm higher and has exposed, easy-to-reach tow hooks in the fairly unlikely event you get stuck. It also has a 20:1 low-range crawl ratio and Active Drive 4x4 which means it can switch between front and all-wheel drive. It'll also wade through almost half a metre of water. It's a genuine mud-plugging proposition and will take on some much bigger machinery out in the bush.

On the road, where we spent all our time in the Renegade, it's not what you'd call particularly inspiring. There's a number of sources of noise that contribute to a less than quiet cabin and having to constantly correct your course at freeway speeds adds to the tiring nature of the Renegade.

It's much better at lower speeds, pottering around but then again, its nine-speed transmission needs a lot more work on the shift mapping because it seems to forget which gear it needs to be in when you sink the right foot. If you don't need the Trailhawk's extra off-road goodies, consider the 1.4 litre Limited or Longitude.

The Discovery Sport P300e has the goods on paper when it comes to power and it does... once you're up to speed. That's when you can punch it and feel confident at overtaking or keeping your speed consistent on hills.

It's when you're accelerating from a full-stop that it becomes a bit lacklustre as there's serious lag between accelerating and actually moving forward. Accept that you will have to accommodate for this inaction whenever you are joining or crossing traffic from a standstill.

Besides this little hiccup in the power delivery, handling on the whole is good.

The Disco Sport is easy to manoeuvre and you don’t feel like you’re driving something big, despite the ample cabin space. It also handles itself well in corners without too much roll.

The switch between the electric and petrol components isn’t always the smoothest but when it’s in its electric mode it’s blissfully quiet. The cabin feels refined too because you don’t get a lot of external noise in the cabin at all.

The wide windows and higher ride means visibility is great and the optioned digital rearview mirror adds another viewpoint if the back window isn’t clear.

The Disco Sport proves to be nimble and easy to park with the optioned and clear 360-degree camera system, and the sensors at the front and rear are sensitive.

The Discovery Sport plug-in hybrid variant is not covered by its siblings' five-star ANCAP safety rating from 2022, so the P300e is unrated but features some good safety gear.

Standard items include AEB, blind spot monitoring, driver attention alert, tyre pressure monitoring, rear collision warning, forward collision warning, rear cross-traffic alert, lane keeping aid, traffic sign recognition, intelligent seatbelt warning, and adaptive cruise control.

The traffic sign recognition tech is dreadfully intrusive, which impacts the driving enjoyment. I turn the warning sound alerts off each time I hop in as it's like a small child is hitting the same piano key over and over again - just to give you a sense of the sound itself and resulting annoyance.

It has seven airbags but interestingly, and unusually, the seventh one is a pedestrian airbag.

This model misses out on lane departure warning but for any families, there are ISOFIX mounts on the rear outboard seats plus three top tethers and you should be able to get three seats back if they’re not too big.