More power & range for next-level SUV

Dylan Ryan thought the fuel gauge might be defective on his brand new Next Generation Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV plug-in hybrid. He even found himself tapping the glass on the dial in the driver’s display – a futile exercise when it involves digital instrumentation.

“Well, the thing was, I’d done my first 200km and the petrol gauge was still showing absolutely full,” says a slightly sheepish Ryan. “It blew me away; I rang a couple of friends and told them how much this vehicle saved on gas. I could tell it interested them – they started texting back, asking if the needle had moved yet.”

It did. Barely. Ryan covered more than 600km – and the 4WD’s petrol gauge was still showing three-quarters full. “It’s a game-changer for me,” he says. “It will be weeks before I have to fill up again.”

The game-change he is talking about is the 2022 Outlander PHEV’s remarkable technology advances. They include a new battery with a longer range of 84km when fully charged, an ingenious set of driving modes – one of which uses the petrol engine to charge the battery – and a convenient charging system, including clever regenerative braking.    

Ryan* lives in Birkenhead on Auckland’s North Shore and drives about 12km to work in the CBD. It’s a distance the SUV’s battery can easily handle, so he drives it like a full EV or on “normal” – the mode where the petrol engine will cut in when the Outlander computer thinks it needs to.

It’s the “don’t-have-to-think” mode, Ryan says, and propels the car so quietly and smoothly that he doesn’t even notice the rare moments when the engine cuts in. There are four main drive modes controlled by the push of a button: Normal, EV, Save (where the vehicle saves the charge on the battery and uses the petrol engine) and Charge (where the petrol engine charges the battery as well as powers the car).

In addition, a different selector offers mostly better road-holding 4WD options – for tarmac (dry sealed roads), gravel (for unpaved or wet roads), snow (for slippery conditions), mud (for muddy roads or deep snow). There are two other modes on the cylindrical selector on the driver’s left, between the front seats: Eco and Power.

The first adapts the car’s performance for maximum economy and minimum petrol usage – and is a big part of the reason Mitsubishi can claim up to 1.6 litres per 100km fuel usage. The Power switch is a “sport” setting: “It goes like stink,” says Ryan. “It’s great for overtaking on the open road.”

He plugs it into an ordinary power point in his car port every few days: “I thought I’d have to charge it every night but every three or four days is fine for me; I went a full week easily when I worked from home for a day or two.”

Daniel Cook, Mitsubishi Motors NZ’s Chief Operations Officer, says simple charging is only one of the reasons for the way thousands of Kiwis are embracing the next generation Outlander PHEV and the feedback they are giving to Mitsubishi dealers around the country.

“We are seeing people pride themselves, on taking ownership, on just how long they can go before they have to go to a petrol station,” he says. “The people that buy them really love them – they become far more engaged with the Outlander than they were with their last petrol car.

“They love hills, for example, because going down hills means you can help regenerate the battery simply by taking your foot off the accelerator. You don’t even have to brake at all and you can see the energy being returned to the battery, increasing your range as an EV.”

The technology that enables all this is what makes this plug-in hybrid so much fun to drive. The Outlander PHEV has two electric motors at either end of the car, plus a more refined 2.4L petrol engine than the last Outlander models. That, and the new, much bigger battery (boosting the range by 52 per cent), provides torque, smoothness and responsiveness.   

For the technically minded, upgrades to the front and rear electric motors boosts the maximum output to 185kW maximum output (up from 130kW) with a hefty 450Nm of torque (up from 332Nm) for more powerful, efficient performance.

The Outlander’s next-generation PHEV system has significantly improved electronics which help the system switch automatically between EV and hybrid modes, depending on the driving conditions and remaining battery power. In other words, the car’s computer can decide for you what mode you should be in – and the transition is so seamless as to be almost undetectable.

The 2.4L engine is boosted by a 24 per cent increase in fuel capacity, meaning the Outlander PHEV’s total combined driving range (electric plus petrol) is up by 50 per cent over the previous model.

That means one of the major pain points in pure electric cars – range anxiety – is non-existent. Ryan says, on longer trips, it is a boon not to have to swot up on where charging stations are located and interrupt the journey to put more juice into the vehicle.

“On a long road trip, you can run the battery out and the engine just takes over,” he says. “You don’t even notice it happening, it’s so smooth. Alternatively, you can put the vehicle into Save – and it will store the battery charge for use when you get to your destination. Or you can select Charge mode – and the engine will charge the battery up to 80 per cent full. It’s a clever piece of kit.” 

There is also a huge range of driver assist and safety technology at easy command in the cab, including a top reversing camera, driver display unit and infotainment screen.

However, maybe what drivers like Ryan have noticed most (apart from the fuel savings and minimal emissions) is that the Outlander PHEV has changed his style of driving.

“I am a much more involved driver now,” he says. “Previously, I’d just get in my old car, turn the key and press the accelerator. It was all about getting from Point A to Point B.

“Now I find I am much more interested in what the car is doing when it’s being driven and you naturally adjust your driving to fit the vehicle; you become much more of an energy freak, much more aware of using renewable energy.”

Ryan says the Outlander PHEV’s regenerative braking system has five levels, applying different strengths to the kinetic energy being turned into electric energy. “It means you are always able to put something back into the battery and you look forward to finding a hill – because you can use the downwards motion to employ the regenerative braking.

“That also means you are using your brakes less as well as using the petrol engine less – both things also saving you money in terms of wear and tear.”  

When he’s driving up steeper hills, Ryan says, he often switches from EV to Charge mode “because going up hills can suck a few kilometres out of the battery range. Again, you don’t use much petrol and you maintain your battery range. It makes driving that much more interesting and you feel good about the minimal emissions.”

There’s one more thing – Ryan says his wife, Julie, is tiny, barely 1.55m, and he was worried that the Outlander PHEV would seem too big for her. Not a bit of it.

“She loves it. When she first drove it, she said it didn’t feel like a big car at all because it was so responsive to the touch and all the driver aids, including things like blind spot detectors, made her feel safe.”

Now, he says, he is still engaging with his fuel gauge every day, eager to see just how far he can travel and make this first tank of gas last before he has to fill up with 91 octane.

And he’ll be ringing his mates to tell them…

*Name changed for privacy reasons