Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV review

In pure-electric mode, it's smooth and quiet – more so than the European and Korean PHEVs which send the motor drive through a multi-speed gearbox. Here it's seamless. You've got a 115bhp front motor and a 136bhp one at the rear, but Mitsubishi doesn't state how much electricity the inverters can supply, so it's not clear if in EV mode the car can deliver that 251bhp total. Doesn't quite feel like it.

That said it does get along in most driving without troubling the combustion engine – this isn't one of those PHEVs where you have to treat the accelerator like glass if you want pure electric motion.

When you do floor the throttle, things don't take too long to happen. The engine chimes in immediately to give extra power, both into its generator to juice up the inverters for the drive motors, and at higher speeds to drive the wheels directly. You can get that ICE contribution even if you've pressed the EV button – think of it as kickdown.

Other than that a big rotary dial lets you choose from normal, eco and power modes for daily driving. Mostly just use normal and it'll sort things out and use the battery energy sensibly. When you ask for lots of power the engine revs do flare, but not too noisily, and the rest of the time it hums quietly. In power mode, the engine keeps going all the time, making response even perkier.

By the way you can also press a button to hold battery energy to make better use of it later in the trip – say you'll be going into a city. You can also use the engine to recharge the battery to full, but that's very inefficient and we can't think why you would.

Does it corner?

The steering is progressive and helpfully weighted and roll well controlled, so it's an easy car to thread down the lanes that will likely be its habitat – Mitsubishi, like Subaru, has always been a brand that skews rural.

One quirk though. On the same rotary dial as power/eco/normal, you've got 'dynamics' modes, one of which is tarmac. Yes, a tarmac setting as well as power. And tarmac is actually the sportier of the two, as it throws more torque to the rear motor and is keener with the by-brake torque vectoring ('active yaw control' to Evo fans).

It also makes the steering a little heavier. In that mode the steering response is a little odd: it suddenly ramps up after about an eighth of a turn of the wheel, pitching you into the bend more than you might have expected.

The suspension's average-to-firm for the class, but it takes the sharp edges off bumps, and damping control is fine and the body feels rigid, so you soon settle into its ways. It cruises pretty well on motorways, although the engine starts to get noticeably busier if you adopt, shall we say, continental speed.

What about the ‘utility’ in SUV?

Within the limits of its tyres and 20cm ground clearance the Outlander has an impressively tolerant attitude to the punishment of off-roading. You've got hill descent control and other 'dynamic' modes – gravel, snow and mud. They're the sort of thing you'd typically find on an off-roader, modifying throttle calibration and traction control.

As for towing, it has stability control, and is rated for a 1,600kg braked trailer.

On-road driver assists aren't the best calibrated, but they're better than the Chinese. Also their warnings are less obtrusive, and steering wheel buttons make them relatively easy to quench.