2023 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (inc. 0-100) detailed review: Best plug-in hybrid on the market?

CarExpert

I wasn't expecting to like the Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid as much as I did. But, there you go, I enjoyed it. Paul Maric tests out the 2023 Mitsubishi Outlander Exceed Plug-in Hybrid EV.  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Mitsubishi content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/mitsubishi More Mitsubishi Outlander content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/mitsubishi/outlander  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 01:12 Interior 04:28 Infotainment 05:50 Safety Tech 06:11 Practicality 08:51 Charging 12:15 On the Road 15:29 0 - 100 km/h 22:09 Verdict 27:18  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #mitsubishi #outlander #phev #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. I'm a big fan of the Mitsubishi Outlander, but always thought it just lacked

00:04 a little bit of punch. Well, they're hoping to address it with this, which is the Outlander

00:09 Plug-In Hybrid EV. This actually has a massive cult following here in Australia for some

00:14 reason, so the people that buy these absolutely love them. I want to see if this version kind

00:19 of mimics what the original one did, but adds to it with all the new stuff that they've

00:24 fitted to the Outlander. This one here is the top specification, well, one down from

00:28 the top specification, called the XCeed. It's priced at just under $66,000. The top spec

00:34 is the XCeed Tourer with a couple of other bells and whistles. If that's too expensive,

00:37 the entire Plug-In Hybrid range of the Outlander kicks off at just under $55,000. Now, this

00:43 competes with things like the Ford Escape P-HEV and also the MG HS P-HEV, but outside

00:48 of that, there really aren't too many Plug-In Hybrid competitors in this price bracket.

00:53 The rest of them are hybrids, so it is kind of unique in that sense. Today, we're going

00:56 to do a detailed review of this car, so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of

00:59 the review, you can use the timecodes on the screen, or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll

01:03 down and use the chapters below, and if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our

01:06 channel and press the bell icon. That way you'll find out every single time we review

01:10 a very red car.

01:12 Now, let's talk about design. Actually, before we do that, why are we inside our lab? We

01:18 actually shot our SUV size comparison video in this exact spot because it was bucketing

01:23 down outside. Today, it's a different problem. It is so windy that our microphone was like

01:28 exploding, so that's why we're in here. Now, in terms of the design, you have nine exterior

01:32 colours to pick from. All but white is going to cost you either roughly $750 or just under

01:37 $1,000, depending on which colour you want to go for. Look, I reckon this is a good-looking

01:42 car. We recently checked out the Nissan X-Trail, which this shares a platform with, but you

01:46 can't really tell that they're the same car beneath the skin because they look totally

01:50 different to each other. So, with the Outlander here, you have this giant grille, but only

01:55 part of it is actually real. This is all sort of closed off up the top here. These sections

01:59 here are open and so is the bottom as well. You can see a radar built into there, big

02:03 Mitsubishi logo and a camera there for the 360 camera. Now, this design kind of carries

02:09 over to what they have on Pajero Sport and also Triton. That means these chrome elements

02:14 that kind of sweep under that top section of light all the way down to the bottom here.

02:18 This car's a little bit different to some other cars on the road because this top section

02:21 is only for your LED daytime running light and indicator, whereas this bottom section

02:26 down here is for your headlights, the high beam as well. These are really good headlights.

02:30 I was driving in the country the other night and the projection is incredible. It comes

02:34 with matrix LED function as well, so pretty comprehensive setup there.

02:37 Now, let's whip around to the side here. You've got yourself a set of 20-inch alloy wheels,

02:42 so it's got that machined finish on the outside with piano black on the inside. Fairly low-profile

02:48 tyre. Some people have complained about the ride on the Outlander. I didn't hate it all

02:52 that much, but this car will be significantly heavier because it's carrying a big battery

02:55 for the plug-in hybrid system, so I'll be interested to see how that affects the ride

02:59 and whether that's going to make this an uncomfortable car to drive in.

03:03 Ground clearance is a little over 200mm. You've got these wheel arch protectors here, you

03:08 know, just in case you do any off-roading. This was actually in a recent Medium SUV off-road

03:13 test that we did, and you can watch that by clicking up there. That didn't have the plug-in

03:18 hybrid EV, it just had the standard Outlander, so we'll have to repeat the test in the plug-in,

03:22 but you can see how it performs on a light off-road course.

03:25 Over here you have a litany of plug-in hybrid badges, so you've got this one here that reads

03:29 plug-in hybrid EV. You've got the same badge on the other side, and then another badge

03:33 like that on the rear as well. Camera here in the wing mirror with an indicator built

03:38 into there. I like this black section that divides the body colours. You can actually

03:42 get, I think just on the XC, two of the black coloured roof as well, or an offset colour,

03:47 so it kind of gives it a bit of unique character.

03:50 Roof rails over here, this car gets a panoramic sunroof. You've also got privacy glass, and

03:55 then come around to the back, you've got LED taillights, well for the most part, these

03:59 sections here are incandescent, so you won't get the effects of the LED on that. There's

04:03 your other P-HEV badge with XC for that model, Outlander down the bottom there as well.

04:09 Now, what do you think about the design? They've kind of hidden all of the exhaust outlets

04:14 and stuff like that on this, trying to keep that sort of green image. Do you like the

04:17 look of the Outlander? Do you think that the plug-in hybrid is going to be the way to go

04:21 in the Outlander range? And are you a current Outlander P-HEV owner? I'm keen to get your

04:26 feedback. Let me know in the comments section below.

04:28 So we are inside the Outlander FEV. We'll start off with the key. So you've got the

04:33 Mitsubishi logo up the top. Lock, unlock, boot. Nothing on the back there. This is a

04:39 proximity sensing key, so once you're inside, you have a push button to start there. Now,

04:43 on first inspection, nothing actually looks all that different between this and the standard

04:48 Outlander that isn't a plug-in hybrid. And the only real differences are a couple of,

04:52 one extra drive mode here and then a couple of extra buttons here. Outside of that, this

04:56 all appears the same. And look, to me, that's a good thing because it is nice materials

04:59 here along the dashboard. It all looks and feels nice and premium. And when you're talking

05:04 about the money that Mitsubishi wants you to spend on this, it is really getting up

05:08 there. It's close to $70,000, so you really do want to feel like you're getting value

05:12 for money. I don't love all of this piano black down here. That marks really easily.

05:16 And the second, you know, you get one scratch on it, it's there for life pretty much. So

05:21 that is a little bit annoying. But outside of that, touch points. So that's not too bad

05:25 there on the armrest and it's good there on the door as well. How soft are they? Well,

05:29 we've got our durometer. We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to

05:33 see how this car compares to others that we've tested before, have a look at the link in

05:36 the description below. What about your build quality? Oh, that's fairly wonky in the centre

05:42 there, which isn't great. But the rest of this feels pretty good. And our door test

05:46 sounds nice and solid. Let's talk about infotainment. So up the top here, you have a nine inch infotainment

05:54 system. And so it's a colour touchscreen. You've got shortcut buttons down the bottom

05:58 here. Then ahead of the driver, you have a 12.3 inch display that I'll run you through

06:01 shortly. Now on this screen here, you have inbuilt satellite navigation that's native

06:06 to that operating system. Works pretty well, sort of no real sort of dramas there. In addition

06:12 to all the regular stuff you have fitted to that infotainment system, you've also got

06:16 sections here for your EV settings. So it shows you how much range we have left in the

06:21 battery and how much range you have combined with the battery and fuel in the tank. Then

06:25 in addition to that, you have a subsequent EV menu here that gives you indications of

06:29 where you can find charging stations. You can set your charging timer and also charge

06:34 settings as well. Plus all of those features that relate to vehicle to home, vehicle to

06:39 grid, that type of thing. So that is where you're able to make all of those changes.

06:43 On the radio front, you have AM, FM, DAB plus digital radio. And it's all plumbed through

06:49 a nine speaker Bose branded sound system. Look, the sound system's OK. I found it lacked

06:53 a bit of bass even with it turned up all the way. It kind of just was a bit meh. So yeah,

06:58 I think that could be just a tiny bit better. Smartphone mirroring comes in the form of

07:01 Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. I'll show you what Apple CarPlay looks like first. So

07:05 full screen integration, it's wireless. I used this on a long drive recently and all

07:11 worked nicely. So no dropouts, which I found with Hyundai products does my absolute head

07:17 in. So that is good. Android Auto, I'll show you what that looks like. So unlike CarPlay,

07:22 which is wireless, Android Auto is wired, but all pretty straightforward and works quite

07:27 well. Now, ahead of the driver, this 12.3 inches

07:30 bar, running through what you can see on the screen here, you have a lot of customisability

07:34 there. You can switch between different menus in the centre of the screen and have this

07:38 sort of super-sized display. But then what you can also do is change the display so that

07:43 you have a more traditional layout with gauge there, effectively for the EV system as well.

07:49 So yeah, it's not a bad setup and the screen's really nice and clear.

07:51 Now moving on to safety tech. So you've got autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian

07:56 and cyclist detection. You've got an auto-dimming rear vision mirror, blind spot monitor built

08:00 into that wing mirror. You've got rear cross-traffic alert. You have radar cruise control. The

08:05 only sort of thing with this whole system is it has a lane departure warning and a lane

08:09 keeping assistant, but it doesn't have a semi-autonomous steering function. So we will test that out

08:14 later to see what it's like, but it is a little short on some of the competitors in this segment

08:18 that come with that technology. On the parking front, you have both front and rear parking

08:22 sensors and a 360 camera, and this is what the camera looks like. So the quality is actually

08:27 pretty good. So you can see clearly out the front that you've got guidelines that move

08:31 with the steering wheel, and then as required, you can also change the angles as well. So

08:35 there's our front tyre, and I think the quality of that is pretty good. In terms of the rear

08:41 view, let me flick this on so we can see out the back. There it is there. So you can pretty

08:48 clearly see the suitcase. The quality of that is fantastic.

08:51 Moving on to practicality, and we'll start off with your connectivity. So you've got

08:54 a USB-C outlet along with a USB-A outlet. You've got a 12-volt outlet just there. You

08:59 also have wireless phone charging. Where are you going to put your phone? So it can live

09:03 down there on the wireless charging pad, or alternatively, you can whack it in the cup

09:07 holders should you require that. Coffee cup goes into there without any dramas, so it

09:14 comes out nicely. Let's see if our water bottles fit into there as well. Yep, all good there.

09:19 Fit into the door too. We'll try the big one as well. Big one doesn't fit into there, but

09:27 it does fit inside the door, good news.

09:30 Additional storage. You've got this centre console here. It's pretty small. I reckon

09:33 that could be just a tiny bit bigger. Down here, you've got a little bit of storage on

09:37 both sides. You've got a glove box down here, which is pretty reasonably sized, and finally,

09:42 you have a sunglasses holder up the top.

09:43 And what about your comfort? You've got dual-zone automatic climate control. You have a third

09:48 zone of climate control for your second and third rows. You've got heated seats for the

09:52 front row. The seats themselves are really good, so they hug you in nicely, but you've

09:57 got this sort of nice diamond quilted finish on them. They are electrically adjustable

10:03 with memory for both the driver and front passenger, so you can go forwards, backwards,

10:06 backrest can go forwards, backwards. You can lift the front, you can lift the back as well.

10:11 In addition to that, you have lumbar support, and if you go for the XC Tourer, you actually

10:14 get massage seats as well, which is pretty fancy. On our reach test, all of this stuff

10:19 is easy to reach while you're driving, and the steering is adjustable both for tilt and

10:24 reach.

10:25 So, second row of the Outlander. So, knee room, excellent. Toe room, good, but not amazing.

10:32 Headroom not too bad. So, you'll notice here with this roof that it kind of tapers in a

10:37 bit there at the top, so you do get that headroom that you need, which is pretty good.

10:41 Now, in terms of your creature comforts, you've got air vents here. This is where your third

10:44 zone of climate is. You've got another two sets of USB ports. One is a USB-A, one is

10:49 a USB-C. Now, down at the bottom here, there's something interesting. So, it's a 1500 watt

10:54 power outlet. There's one here and also one in the boot. This is where you get your vehicle

10:58 to load functionality, so you can run appliances off that that go up to 1500 watts, which is

11:02 pretty good. Not quite 3600 watts, which is what you get in some of the EVs, like the

11:07 EV6 and the Ioniq 5, but still pretty good nonetheless. Matte pockets down here, plus

11:12 additional storage pockets up the top. You can see here that the seats have a similar

11:15 design to the front there with that diamond quilting. These also both move forward to

11:20 give you more room in the third row, plus more luggage space as well if you need it.

11:24 You don't have a traditional centre armrest here. It kind of folds like this, and that

11:29 then gives you access to an armrest and also a pair of cup holders. This also fits inside

11:35 the door without too many dramas. You've got some privacy blinds here. You can whack those

11:39 up if you want to. Now, our window test. Let's see how this works. That's really not very

11:46 good. It doesn't go all the way down. In addition to that, you've got two ISOFIX points on the

11:49 two outboard seats and then three top tether points here as well. Now, I don't want to

11:54 break with tradition being a three-row SUV. I need to see if I can fit in the back. This

11:57 one's interesting though, and I'll explain why. So, if I drop this down, you can see

12:02 here that there is literally no legroom there at all. Like, you can't even fit a child in

12:06 there when this is in its standard setting. So, you do have to slide this seat forward.

12:10 Now, when that's all the way forward, you do actually have a little bit of space. So,

12:14 I'm going to climb in. This space is obviously just for adults, and as you can tell, it is

12:19 tricky. I'm sorry, when I say adults, this space is only for kids. Obviously, not just

12:24 for adults. When I bring this back a little bit, you'll see what I mean. So, I don't have

12:30 any headroom here. My head is literally on an angle there to fit, and if you have a look

12:35 ahead there, there is just no legroom there either. So, ultimately, yeah, this space is

12:41 just for kids, and even then, it's just occasional use for kids, which is fine because you're

12:45 not going to buy something this size to take adults around. If you do need to have an adult

12:49 in here for a very short trip, it'll be fine, but it is just worth keeping in mind that

12:52 once the kids grow a little bit older, they're going to struggle to actually fit in the back

12:56 here. The fact you can actually have seven seats here in a plug-in hybrid with all these

12:59 batteries and stuff is pretty impressive.

13:01 Now, what about your cargo space? Being a three-row SUV, it's probably not great. Let's

13:07 have a look here. So, you've got a little under 200 litres of cargo space available

13:10 here. Beneath the cargo floor is a tyre repair kit. Let's have a look at how that fits in.

13:17 That's actually not too bad. I think we can... There you go. You can actually fit a suitcase

13:22 plus a laptop bag there, which is pretty good. You sometimes can't do that with a three-row

13:26 SUV. This is quite a clever method of getting rid of this as well. So, you can just drop

13:31 this so it's out of the way like that, and that gives you a little bit more space. Or,

13:35 alternatively, you can make it a flat load floor by dropping that down like that, which

13:41 is really cool. So, you also have a little sort of hole here for the cargo blind, so

13:45 that can stay out of the way when you have the third row in place. This is also where

13:49 you'll find that other AC outlet for making coffees or drinks or whatever. So, with the

13:55 third row tucked away, you have just under 500 litres up to the top of that second row.

13:59 I'll show you what it looks like with the bags in there when that row is down. There

14:03 you go, stacks of room in there. You can expand that space even further by pulling these levers,

14:11 and then that expands to a little under 1,500 litres of space. So, it is actually pretty

14:15 practical for a plug-in hybrid SUV.

14:18 Now, before we go for a drive, I want to run you through the charging. So, it's on this

14:21 side here. There's a big old flap there because you actually have two different charge types.

14:25 So, you have single-phase AC at up to 3.7 kilowatts, and then you have DC, and it's

14:30 in the form of the CHAdeMO plug. Now, this is pretty uncommon here in Australia. It is

14:36 the standard in Japan. But the whole reason this exists is because this plug here allows

14:40 you to do bidirectional electricity flow effectively. This allows you to do vehicle-to-grid and

14:46 vehicle-to-home. What that means is that if you do buy a certain specific wall box that

14:51 you can get at home, you basically plug your car up to that, and it allows you to export

14:55 up to 10 kilowatts of energy through to a home or to a grid. And that makes this car

15:00 kind of the sustainable option if you want to live off the grid, because you can charge

15:04 it off your solar during the day and then use the car to run the home at night time,

15:07 given it has a 20 kilowatt-hour battery. So, I think it is a pretty sort of impressive

15:11 setup there, and really makes it unique in this segment, because nothing else in this

15:16 segment offers this type of infrastructure.

15:18 Now, the other thing to keep in mind as well, driving range of about 80-ish kilometres,

15:22 depending on the cycle. So, the 20 kilowatt-hour battery will actually give you that decent

15:26 driving range for day-to-day use.

15:30 So I've just hit the road in the Outlander PHEV. Now, before I get on to the driving

15:36 and stuff like that, I thought I'd mention that I actually drove this car back from the

15:40 launch, which was in Adelaide. I drove it to Melbourne. If you're not familiar with

15:44 that distance, it's about 800 kilometres is what I ended up doing, with a little bit

15:47 of a detour that I took as well. So, I've had a fair bit of time behind the wheel of

15:51 this on the highway and in and around the city as well, so I'm looking forward to sharing

15:55 all of that with you.

15:56 Under the bonnet here is a really sort of complex setup, but it's a setup that I think

16:00 works really well in this plug-in hybrid space. So, you have a naturally aspirated 2.4-litre

16:04 petrol engine. That on its own makes just under 100 kilowatts of power and just under

16:09 200 newton-metres of torque. So, that is a pretty sort of healthy number to begin with.

16:14 It's then mated with an electric motor on the front axle and then an electric motor

16:17 on the rear axle, so there is no driveline that runs down the centre of the car. They

16:21 actually use a lot of that space for the battery pack, which has grown in size now to 20 kilowatt-hours.

16:26 Now, the front motor, 85 kilowatts of power, 255 newton-metres of torque, while the rear

16:31 motor is 100 kilowatts of power and 195 newton-metres of torque. Now, that all combines to give

16:39 you a combined output of 185 kilowatts of power and 450 newton-metres of torque. I know

16:44 I've thrown a whole stack of numbers there at you, but the reason I think this is a really

16:49 good setup is they've ditched a standard transmission. So, in some plug-in hybrids, they use a regular

16:53 transmission with stepped gears, and I just hate that setup because you just feel the

16:57 gears changing as you're moving along on electric power. They actually use a single-speed trans-axle

17:03 and that's attached to the front, and that's able to basically interact with not only the

17:07 electric motor on the front axle but also the internal combustion engine. And depending

17:12 on the speed that the car's doing, it's either using the internal combustion engine as a

17:15 generator or at higher speeds when the engine speed matches, the wheel speed can actually

17:21 directly drive the wheels as well. In addition to that, it's also able to charge the battery

17:27 and also supply extra voltage when you do need a power boost when you're under full

17:30 throttle. So, really interesting setup and in practice it works really well. So, right

17:35 now we're, you know, we have 30 kilometres of range left on the battery, but we are able

17:39 to just drive along on EV mode only. I can progressively feed in the throttle and we're

17:44 really not seeing that internal combustion engine kick on at all until far later down

17:49 the track. You have EV modes here, so you can go from normal to EV. EV is where it is

17:54 just driving the wheels through electric motors, so I can basically go all the way to the floor

18:00 there on that, and it's not until I hit the kick-down switch that we get the internal

18:04 combustion engine come on as well briefly to give us that voltage boost. You can then

18:09 put it into save mode, which runs the internal combustion engine and means you don't use

18:13 the battery, and then you can also run it in charge mode, which just charges the battery

18:18 using the internal combustion engine as a generator. So, plenty of cool modes there

18:23 to play with. Another one here is the single pedal driving mode. Now, they call it some

18:28 other nonsense, but effectively it mimics what the Nissan LEAF has, Tesla, that kind

18:33 of thing. The only problem is, if I roll out of the throttle now, you can see it goes into

18:36 that deep charge mode. We get to about 20 k's an hour and then it just goes, "Oh, it's

18:40 entirely up to you now to manage the rest," so you then have to take over and come to

18:43 a full stop. So, I would much prefer single pedal driving mode to just be single pedal

18:48 driving mode. Now, in addition to that single pedal driving button, you can actually use

18:52 the paddles to roll through different regen modes all the way up to B5 there, so it will

18:57 go into a deep regen as it comes to a stop, so you have a little bit of flexibility. Another

19:02 thing that's a little odd with this combination is it actually has a towing capacity, so you

19:06 can tow 1600 kilos with a brake trailer, and that means that you are able to use this as

19:11 a daily vehicle if required. It is worth keeping in mind, though, that it does weigh a little

19:15 over 2100 kilos, so you will really be feeling a lot of that weight if you do tow 1600 kilos,

19:23 have a full complement of people in the car, and obviously a lugging around the battery

19:27 and all the other components. Now, what does that all mean in terms of your fuel economy?

19:31 So, look, P-HEVs always have this outrageous claim for fuel economy of under 2 litres per

19:36 100 ks, and it's the same story here with the Outlander, but in practice, once you do

19:42 actually run the battery entirely dry, you are using this as a hybrid, and as a hybrid,

19:48 it's actually quite efficient. So, after my 800 kilometre drive, I ended up with a combined

19:52 fuel economy of 6.7 litres per 100 ks, which I thought was pretty impressive for what is

19:57 predominantly 110, 100 kilometre an hour driving roads, and then in and around the city, you're

20:01 also going to benefit from being able to plumb some juice back into the batteries, which

20:05 you can't really do when you are travelling on the highway. And then in terms of your

20:09 average economy for the battery, they claim a number of 23 kilowatt hours per 100 ks.

20:15 Let's have a look at our number there. We ended up coming in at 24.3 over a distance

20:22 of 900 kilometres, so pretty impressive there, I reckon. Now, what about your drive mode?

20:26 You have a litany of them to choose from here. You've got Eco, Normal, some off-road modes

20:31 there as well, Tarmac mode, which is kind of the sport mode, and then you have the high

20:35 power mode. So, the high power mode and Tarmac mode will basically put this into its fastest

20:40 setting in terms of how quickly it accelerates, and we use maximum thrust from the electric

20:44 motors and the internal combustion engine as well. Might as well flick over to Tarmac

20:49 now, we'll go for a little punt. It's kicked on, the internal combustion engine, jesus,

20:53 it actually hauls along really nicely there, so punt it through here. This is really impressive,

21:02 I wasn't expecting this to be as darty as it is. The other interesting thing I'm feeling

21:07 here as well, and something Mitsubishi's quite proud of, is the super active wheel control,

21:13 I think that's what it's called. Basically, technology they mastered with the Evolution

21:19 Cars and Rally have now rolled it out to vehicles like this, and what you're able to do is jump

21:25 over to this setting, and you can see there as I'm punting through these corners, it's

21:30 able to individually control wheel speed using a braking torque vectoring setup, and as we

21:37 roll around these corners and I apply throttle, you can actually feel it shoving torque around

21:43 where it needs to go. It's actually not a bad setup, we're all onto the back straight,

21:47 I'm actually surprised how quick this is, it is moving. You can hear our antenna for

21:52 the V-Bolts there whistling along, wow, that is actually, I wasn't expecting that. Yeah,

22:01 the outlander typically is a little bit slow and not that interesting, this on the other

22:05 hand is kind of ridiculous, that was awesome. Now let's do our 0-100 runs, so Mitsubishi

22:12 claims a time of 8.2 seconds, it's actually become faster than the previous generation,

22:17 so you achieve that in the high power setting. We'll give this a shot, we'll see what happens.

22:22 Here we go. I'm running through to 120 so we can get our overtaking figure. It's tapering

22:34 off a lot there after 100km/h. I'll bring this to a stop. Oh wow, that's impressive,

22:42 so we exceeded the manufacturer claims, 7.9 seconds for 0-100 and then 7.3 seconds for

22:49 80-120, which is interesting because it kind of tells us that 0-100 is where they've focused

22:56 everything and then 80-120 it kind of tapers off, and that's what I noticed when I was

23:00 driving that long distance. When I was going to overtake from 100km/h, I actually

23:04 needed a really decent run up and it was a little confusing because at low speed it has

23:07 so much punch and it moves along, but then as the speed picks up, you really don't have

23:13 all that much punch and for overtaking it becomes a concern, and that's why I'm saying

23:17 that if you're towing 1600kg with a family on board and you need to overtake, this is

23:21 really going to struggle above 100km/h, so yeah, some really interesting numbers there.

23:26 OK, time for our reverse speed test. How fast will the Outlander go in reverse? I've left

23:32 it in high power mode. Here we go. It takes off alright. 52km/h in reverse, 53, not too

23:48 bad. Now let's talk about our sine wave, we're going to bump this up to 130, give us a little

23:54 bit of speed here, there it is there. Yeah look, it has a bit of hang time there, the

24:01 body control could be much better at the top end, it sort of stays up really high and then

24:06 bounces back down. They are dealing with a lot of additional weight here in comparison

24:11 to the regular Outlander, and I know some people have complained about that sine wave

24:15 test and specifically doing it at 130, but I've got to tell you, if you get your head

24:20 outside the city and go to the country, especially the drive that I just did which is a major

24:25 arterial between Adelaide and Melbourne, some of the roads are absolutely shocking and if

24:30 you do need to overtake a truck or something like that, you obviously are going to sink

24:34 the slipper in, exceed the speed limit, probably, not that I endorse that, it's illegal, but

24:38 it's certainly a logical way to overtake. And if you do hit one of those bumps at speed,

24:43 you really need the car to have enough control so that it will level itself out and not send

24:48 you off the road. So that is why that test is important and that's why we will do it

24:52 with every single car to see exactly how it performs. What's road noise like? Well, you

24:56 do have a little bit of tyre noise that comes into the cabin and you will notice that on

25:00 coarse chip roads. On that longer distance drive, I did have to pump the volume up a

25:03 little bit because it was drowning out a lot of the noise coming out of the speakers when

25:07 I was doing 110 on a coarse chip road. Now, what's visibility like? So, the seating position

25:13 is interesting. In the Outlander, you kind of sit closer to the ground, but I can see

25:17 the edges of the bonnet there without any problems. The wing mirrors are decent enough

25:20 there, you have a blind spot monitor built into those. Visibility out the back is good.

25:24 It is a little compromised if you have your third row headrests up, but for the most part

25:27 that is no dramas. And then when it comes to parking, easier to manoeuvre in and around

25:31 the city. The camera is a decent front and rear parking sensor, the whole shebang. Now,

25:35 one thing Mitsubishi hasn't fixed is the shaking bonnet. I can see it vibrating there at highway

25:40 speeds and yeah, it's not a good look and something that I think that they really need

25:45 to get on top of. It just sort of must be the air that gets underneath it or something.

25:49 So time to test out the lane support systems. Let's see how this goes. I'm going to get

25:54 this up to 70 k's an hour. We'll set the cruise control and then we'll test how well our lane

26:00 support system works. Okay, here we go. Drifted off to that lane. It's not sort of, it is

26:12 okay, I mean it's preventing us from leaving the lane, but it isn't one of these steering

26:16 systems that will actually hold the steering wheel for you. And it's interesting, it vibrates

26:22 the steering wheel and then it actually brakes and pushes you back into the lane. So Mitsubishi

26:27 actually has access to tech that will do the steering and all that sort of stuff on its

26:31 own and I think that is coming to Australia. But at this stage, it is just this standard

26:37 setup. I'll just test it in all three lanes as well and just make sure it works even when

26:41 you do have a slightly trickier situation. Jump up to lane three here. Okay, so it's

26:50 detecting those lines. Let's see, for lane three it's only vibrating, it doesn't actually

26:57 hold the car within that lane. Interesting. So, there you go. If you want to see how the

27:03 Outlander compares to other cars that we've tested before, have a look at the link in

27:07 the description below, but this is just a lane departure warning and a lane departure

27:12 prevention system. It won't actually steer the car for you when cruise control is set.

27:18 So the Mitsubishi Outlander FEV, I actually didn't think I was going to enjoy this as

27:22 much as I have. It really just fixes all the problems the standard Outlander has. It really

27:27 has all that sort of extra punch that you need. You get the green benefits of being

27:31 able to drive about 80km/h just on EV power alone. And then when you do put it in the

27:35 power mode, it absolutely hammers. I was so surprised at how athletic and dynamic it is.

27:40 It really just completely transforms this car. So, in terms of the negatives and stuff

27:44 I need to work on, it's probably the ride. I think that body control, it's just a little

27:49 bit clumsy at the top end there, especially for things like overtaking in the country.

27:53 And when you really want to get stuck into it, it can feel a little bit floaty at times.

27:57 The third row, look, I think ultimately it's great to have a third row available, but it

28:00 is just a kid-only zone back there. Outside of that, it really is so hard to fault this

28:05 car, so really impressed with it. Now, if you are a Mitsubishi Outlander current generation

28:09 FEV owner, are you going to upgrade to this? Does this sort of fix all the problems that

28:13 you had with your car? And do you have plans on using the V2X infrastructure that the car

28:18 has on board? So, let me know in the comments section below, I'm always keen for your feedback.

28:21 Now, if you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it, you share it with your mates,

28:25 and if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. But,

28:29 until next time, take it easy.

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