Outlander PHEV is the Scotsman’s Plug-In Vehicle of the Year
Mitsubishi’s best-selling game-changer the Outlander PHEV has been named Plug-In Vehicle of the Year by Scotland’s national newspaper. The Scotsman, which has been long-term testing one of the vehicles over, said the world’s first 4×4 plug-in hybrid SUV had ‘lived up to its ecocredentials and impressed as a genuinely practical motor’. I reviewed one last year, and will be reviewing the facelifted model next year.
The title’s Steven Chisholm called the Outlander PHEV ‘an exciting prospect for anyone looking for an SUV that’s easy on the wallet as well as the environment’.
He praised the vehicle’s material and build quality as well as the cabin’s planning and space plus ‘huge boot’. In addition, he highlighted how – thanks to the Outlander PHEV’s all-electric range of 32½ miles – staff would ‘relish the challenge of hyper-miling the battery’ on their 30-mile round trips from home to the office and back again without using any petrol at all.
And it was the Outlander PHEV’s great fuel consumption as well as its SUV practicality that combined to make it the newspaper’s winner; its electric power combined with the efficient 2.0-litre petrol engine deliver an anxiety-free driving range of 541 miles.
What’s more, because the Benefit In Kind (BIK) is just 5%, it means a virtual pay rise of several thousand pounds a year for company car drivers, while for business owners there are savings on National Insurance contributions to be had, plus the Outlander PHEV qualifies for 100% First Year Allowance against business profits, saving on the annual tax bill.
The Outlander PHEV currently accounts for around half of all Plug-in Car Grant applications and is the UK’s favourite choice of plug-in vehicle, with Mitsubishi having sold more than 15,000 of them since it was launched last year.
