BBC Top Gear Magazine

Electric field

Hello Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV

- SAM PHILIP

As TG’s newly designated plug-in hybrid correspond­ent (secret power: sniffing out any vacant public charge point within a fivemile radius), I’m moving up in the world. Quite literally: from the hatch-height Hyundai Ioniq, to a seating position a foot or so higher in the Outlander PHEV.

Yes, Britain’s best-selling plug-in hybrid – over 40,000 shifted at last count – has joined the TG fleet. On paper, at least, it seems a slightly more confusing propositio­n than the Ioniq, which, after all, is an unabashed suburbanit­e. But a proper muddy-wellies SUV – don’t be fooled by the facelift, there’s still far more farmyard in the Outlander’s DNA than you’ll find in that of a Tiguan or Kodiaq – that’ll haul you down a winter farm track but also saunter through Knightsbri­dge on electric power alone... well, that’s quite the schizophre­nic sell, no?

That said, if the Outlander can make the Jekyll-and-Hyde act stick, it could be a winner: two cars for the price of one. Zero-emissions urban commuting by day, extreme greenlanin­g by night. Motoring, solved. As, you might argue, it should be, for nearly forty grand.

First impression: when did the Outlander get good-looking? I’d always had it pegged as a bit of a frumpy old goose, but the 2019 update takes those utilitaria­n lines so familiar from Evos of old, and garnishes them with some rather pleasing modern details. Nice wheels, too.

On the inside, the farm ’n’ fashion mash-up is perhaps a fraction less effective. I’m a big fan of the chunky heater switches – operable, no doubt, while wearing Everest-spec woolly mitts – but the info-screens and hybridity displays do look a generation behind those of, say, that Ioniq over the page. Might not seem like a big deal, but in a plug-in, you want to feel you’re at the cutting edge of touchscree­n tech and all that. The Outlander’s tech feels a little… first-gen iPhone.

The charge cables and sockets, too, aren’t quite so swishily assembled as the Hyundai’s. But again, perhaps that’s excusable in a car that’s as likely to be found parked in an actual river as outside the River Cafe. And hey, if it all works a treat, I couldn’t care less…

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