Remarkably, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is currently the UK’s best-selling plug-in
electric vehicle, making up nearly half of all sales since it was introduced in 2014.
For this year, however, they’ve given it a bit of a re-style. Gone is the slightly
bulbous look of the previous car, and the Outlander now wears what the company calls
its ‘Dynamic Shield’, a design that’s set to feature on future SUVs.
It also features the now-expected LED running lights, and these are joined by a capable
set of part-LED headlights. There are a few tweaks to the rear, too, with
re-profiled bumpers, a shark-fin antenna, silver roof rails, chrome trim on the door
sills, and a new light signature at night. Inside, the quality of the leather has been
upgraded, there’s a new ‘black ash’ trim, a new steering wheel with a thicker
rim that’s heated on top models, and it offers a decent range of adjustment that’s
matched by the new, more comfortable seats. We’re not normally fans of gloss black trim
as it tends to show scratches and fingerprints easily, but this stuff isn’t too bad, and
the controls for the new dual-zone climate system now fall easily to hand.
Some of the displays in the instrument cluster have been revised, and in place of a rev-counter
there’s a dial that shows how much power you’re demanding from the hybrid system
or how much you’re recovering through regenerative braking – but more on that later.
The infotainment system has had a few tweaks, too – it’s now faster to start-up, and
although it offers most features you could think of, including a decent navigation function,
music through DAB digital radio and other sources, and a massive range of customisation
options, in general I think we’d probably say it does feel a little bit ‘aftermarket’
in comparison to some other systems. Comfort for rear-seat passengers is good – there’s
plenty of headroom, the seats are comfortable, and there’s only minimal floor intrusion
because there’s no driveshaft running to the rear axle.
The top two models come with a power tailgate as standard, although it is a little slow,
particularly when closing, but once open it reveals a practical load space with 463 litres
up to the window line, an underfloor compartment to hide away the various charging cables and
other goodies, and with the split-folding seats, space increases to anything up to 1,603
litres on the commercial models. Now, this is where it gets a bit more complicated,
because as a plug-in hybrid, under the bonnet there’s a bit more going on than you might
be used to. Over on the left is a 2.0-litre four-cylinder
petrol engine that, by itself, produces about 119hp. However, it’s joined by a 60kW electric
motor and a generator, while under the floor there’s a 12kWh lithium-ion battery and
another 60kW electric motor driving the rear wheels.
The petrol engine can either drive the front wheels directly, or charge the battery via
the generator, and with everything working together, in total the system produces about
200hp and 332Nm of torque - that’s enough for 0-62 in 11 seconds dead.
What’s clever about the Outlander’s system is that it can operate in several modes.
In its pure electric mode, the petrol engine stays off and the front and rear electric
motors drive the wheels, which they can do up to about 75mph and – Mitsubishi claims
– for about 32 miles on a full charge, although we saw something closer to 24 miles during
our testing. When the battery charge gets low, or when
you need a bit more performance, the engine starts automatically and supplies additional
power to the motors. This is called Series Hybrid Mode and it’s something you’ll
most likely experience when overtaking or climbing a hill.
Lastly, there’s Parallel Hybrid Mode which sees the petrol engine drive the front wheels
directly, with additional assistance provided by the electric motors, and it’s this mode
that activates at higher speeds where the electric motors are less efficient.
On top of this, there’s also regenerative braking, which sees the electric motors effectively
turn into generators whenever you use the brakes to help recharge the battery, and you
can alter the amount of energy they recover – and therefore the braking force - using
the B position on the gear-lever or by using the paddles mounted behind the steering wheel.
There’s also a Charge button that tells the system to use the engine to recharge the
batteries, and a Save button that tries to save as much battery energy as possible.
But if all of this sounds a bit too complicated for you, don’t worry, because it’s all
automatic. All you need to do is slam it in Drive and you’re off.
At low speeds, the system favours using the electric motors, and pulling away in near
silence with only the muted whine of the motors to accompany you never grows old.
Generally speaking, when the petrol engine does fire up, it’s largely inaudible – certainly
quiet enough for you to not notice most of the time, although if you gun it away from
the lights, the engine will rev up pretty quickly.
Even then, it’s not intrusive – in fact, it’s probably about the same as any car
with CVT transmission, but do bear in mind that in normal driving, most noises you hear
in a car are more likely to be wind and tyre noise.
Here, the Outlander isn’t bad at insulating you from the outside world, although driving
over sharp bumps and tarmac ridges can make a bit of a racket at times.
For the most part, the Outlander rides well. It has a naturally forgiving suspension set-up
that does an excellent job of smoothing everything out, but it manages to achieve this without
sacrificing body control. We perhaps wouldn’t go as far as to call
it engaging, but even sawing away at the wheel fails to induce too much in the way of body
roll, so on the occasions where you feel the need to press on a bit, the Outlander will
certainly play along. Whether you’re being propelled by engine
or motor, progress is always smooth – there are no gear-changes to get in the way, remember
– and it’s also surprisingly punchy, with overtaking slower-moving traffic made easy
by additional assistance from the electric motors.
However, drive like an idiot, and you’ll quickly put a serious dent in your fuel economy.
The government’s official figure for the Outlander is an incredible 156mpg. Whether
you get to see anything like that in the real world depends on the kind of roads you drive
on and the type of journeys you do. So, for instance, after a week’s testing
that combined a mixture of roads and the occasional charge from the mains, we’d notched up an
average of about 65mpg. On longer and high-speed journeys where the petrol engine is mostly
used, that dropped to about 35mpg. However, if you do mostly short journeys on
urban roads and can recharge the batteries regularly, you might find yourself hardly
ever having to visit a petrol station at all. At least one industry body reckons the UK
average commute is just 25 miles – although I’m not convinced by that – but if that’s
you, and you can charge up at work, then you’re all set.
Charging via the mains takes about 5 hours from flat, or you can have a fast charger
installed that drops that time to about 3½ hours. Alternatively, you can use a public
charger that can generally get you to 80% capacity in around half an hour – enough
to give you about 18 miles of range. You can keep an eye on charging progress via
a dedicated Mitsubishi app. It’s not as polished as, say the Tesla app, but it allows
you to schedule charging or the climate control, as well as change a variety of vehicle settings
– although the app only works if you’re in Wifi range of the car.
The Outlander really starts to make sense as a company car, though. With CO2 emissions
of just 42 g/km, it attracts only 5% benefit-in-kind tax, companies can claim 100% write-down allowance,
it’s exempt from the London congestion charge and - at least until next year - it pays no
road tax. What we like about the Outlander, though,
is that it’s a genuine 4x4 with 190mm of ground clearance and a useful wading ability.
We didn’t put ours through anything too taxing because, as standard, it wears distinctly
road-biased tyres that clog-up easily in the Hampshire clay, but with electric motors front
and rear and a Lock mode for more traction, with a decent set of tyres you might be surprised
what it could do. It used to be the case that you could buy
the Outlander PHEV for the same price as the equivalent diesel model. Unfortunately, on
1st March, the Government Plug-in Car Grant reduced to just £2,500, so now the PHEV starts
from £31,749, while our mid-range GX4h model weighs in at £36,399, for which you get satnav,
heated leather seats, electric sunroof, power tailgate, 360-degree camera, and a few other
goodies. A few years ago, 4x4s like this were reviled
as planet-killers and gas-guzzlers. Back then, the idea of an SUV with economy into triple
figures would have been totally unthinkable. Admittedly, the use cases where the PHEV shines
may be limited, but even outside of that, the Outlander is a stronger performer than
you might think. So good, in fact, it’s not hard to see why
it’s the UK’s best-selling plug-in electric vehicle.