Sorry for my ignorance, but what does 'coppertop' mean?

 

Battery EV.

 

(Read This first)
Hello again, I’ve gotten a new development on this topic. Lennard Hoornik from JLR was recently speaking to Autocar Magazine about the prospects of an EV Defender. He basically said that no, there will not be a full EV L663 - the D7x platform just doesn’t allow for it. However, a Defender EV of some sort is coming.
So do you think electrification will cut the L663 short of its ‘longer than usual’ production run since Hoornik makes it very clear they don’t want to electrify L663, will the Defender be moved from the D7x platform to the new MLA-Flex platform as Cincy Rovers suggested here (I don’t get how this would be possible but he knows what he is talking about so I won’t object) or will an electric Defender Sport be made as per what the media was thinking a couple years ago to run along side L663?

 

It is absolutely possible to move the Defender to MLA-Flex. In fact, JLR has already done this. The original Discovery Sport was on the D8 platform derived from the Ford EUCD platform that was shared with a number of European Ford and Volvo products. The facelift Disco Sport moved to the Premium Transverse Architecture (PTA platform), which was derived from the D8 but changes were so significant it could be called a new platform despite sharing nearly all of the body panels. This is how MLA-Flex was created. A highly reworked version of the D7 platform, and theoretically possible to put the current Defender body on MLA-Flex with minimal changes and without knowing its has completely different underpinnings. The Mazda CX-5 (a fantastic crossover, IMO) also has a similar story. The first facelift in 2017 had so many significant changes to the chassis, it was enough to make it a "second generation" car.

IMO, that would be the easiest way to fully electrify the Defender. But who knows, they very well could do a "Defender Sport" or whatever and electrify it. The first EV based on MLA-Flex is right around the corner - the new Range Rover EV.

 

Agree with comments above. Doesn’t seem to make sense for a major change before the inevitable shift to non fossil powertrain whenever that occurs.