Part of the beauty of owning a vehicle like the Jeep Wrangler, Ford F-150 Raptor, Toyota 4Runner, or even the new Land Rover Defender is the ability to play off-road. By that, we mean hitting rough terrain, climbing over obstacles, and going places cars like the Porsche 911 or Aston Martin DBS Superleggera can’t go. Doing this, however, requires a certain amount of driver skill – your everyday driver doesn’t just know how to approach and climb over rocky terrain or climb excessive steep grades. But, that’s part of the fun of off-roading; you learn how to approach different obstacles and enjoy the challenge. Now, however, it looks like a company known for its off-roading prowess, Land Rover, has lost touch with that entire concept as it works to developer remote control technology for the 2020 Defender.

Why Off-Road Yourself When You Can Do it via Remote Control?

The idea of controlling a car via remote control isn’t old, and some modern cars can do it to some extent now. And, the coolness factor of this concept is what makes remote control cars (the toys) so much fun to play with. This only goes so far, though, and with Land Rover aiming to develop true-to-life remote control tech for the Defender, it’s hoping you’ll send your car off-roading while you sit in the parking lot, smoking cigarettes and watching your vehicle from a – probably – small screen.

Land Rover’s reasoning behind this is, basically, safety. Chief Product Engineer, Stuart Frith, told Autocar “ capable of being able to do that in terms of its architecture. We’ve got as far as understanding how to do it, and we’ve run prototypes as well.” He later added that “If you’re in a tight spot and you’re on your own, you can still get out of the car and ‘spot it' yourself.”

On top of this, Land Rover is also, apparently, considering allowing owners to live-stream their journeys in the new Defender to the cloud with its EVA 2.0 architecture and online pack. That part, I’m on board with, as I think it would be a cool way to showcase what you’re doing on the fly instead of trying to video with your phone like a lot of people attempt to do. However, making a vehicle like the Defender remote-controlled, leaving you behind to control the car from a distance defeats the entire purpose of off-roading, don’t you think?

I don’t know about you, but I’ll take the live-streaming capabilities any day, but remote controlling my vehicle off-road while I sit in the comforts of a Chevy Cavalier isn’t exactly on my bucket list. I think it’s a cool feature to have and it would be fun to impress people with too, however, whether or not it’s actually usable off-road for true die-hard people wrapped up in the culture is another story. I’m guessing most people that do serious off-roading will laugh at the prospect of it altogether but, who knows, maybe I’m wrong. It sure wouldn’t be the first time.

Further Reading

Read our full review on the 2020 Land Rover Defender.

The 2020 Land Rover Defender Has Arrived with New Tricks and Old-School Looks