Hardcore all-electric 4x4 becomes first to be designed and built in UK

An all-electric 4x4 is to become the first to be fully designed and built in the UK under plans announced by a Glasgow-based start-up.

Munro Vehicles said deliveries would commence next year of what it claims will be the world’s most capable all-electric 4x4.

The utility vehicle could beat Tesla’s much-anticipated Cybertruck to the market, with the business saying it will help firms in industries such as mining, construction, agriculture and defence to decarbonise.

It will be the first light vehicle to enter production in Scotland since Peugeot-Talbot closed its plant in Linwood, Renfrewshire, 1981.

A production facility in East Kilbride is expected to manufacture 50 cars next year, before the firm moves to a new purpose-built factory near Glasgow in 2024.

There, the company plans to scale up production from around 250 units per year to 2,500 by 2027.

Priced from around £50,000, the car, which was officially launched this week in Edinburgh, will take 36 minutes to fully charge on a fast setting, just over nine hours on 7kwh and three hours on 22kwh.

It will run for up to 16 hours on a single battery charge, which equates to 190 miles on a highway, manufacturers claim. It will have a top speed of 80mph.

The Munro MK_1 is named after a Scottish mountain that exceeds 914 metres. The concept of designing an electric 4x4 came to company founders Russell Peterson and Ross Anderson during an off-road camping trip in the Scottish Highlands.

Their company has been backed by £750,000 from Elbow Beach Capital, a private investment company focused on decarbonisation, and it is hoped it will raise more capital from the publicly-funded Scottish Investment Bank.

Mr Peterson said: “On the return journey [from the camping trip], we stopped at a café in Braemar, where a bank of 50kW rapid chargers were sitting empty and unused.

“Parked up nearby was a large group of combustion-engined safari adventure 4x4s of a type that are no longer manufactured and will have to be replaced eventually. It dawned on us that there was a gap in the market for an electric-powered, four-wheel-drive, utilitarian workhorse.

“We envisioned a vehicle with ultimate, go-anywhere, off-road ability, unrestricted by road-derived underpinnings that limit the all-terrain ability of vehicles such as the 4x4 pick-up trucks that have come to dominate the market.”

He added: “The Munro has been built to the most robust standards possible and to be fully operational in 30, 40, 50 years' time.”