The 2024 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Is A Shockingly Good Hybrid Family SUV

About 22 years ago Mitsubishi introduced a very important new SUV nameplate to the states called the Outlander. Now the Outlander grew to become the company's best-selling vehicle in North America also providing the baseline for Mitsubishi to introduce what they claim to be the world's first plug-in hybrid SUV nearly a decade ago. Now two years ago we also saw Mitsubishi give us an all-new version of the Outlander moving it to its fourth generation sharing componentry with the also new Nissan Rogue as part of the Nissan Mitsubishi partnership and last year we saw the company reintroduce the plug-in hybrid version of the Outlander called the P-HEV. It got a big update in terms of the battery pack now measuring 20 kilowatt hours providing nearly 40 miles of electric only range standard all-wheel drive and nearly 250 horsepower underneath the hood. So as you can see this week we are behind the wheel once again of the Mitsubishi plug-in hybrid and the big question I want answered for those of you who are looking for an electrified family SUV that offers a small third row that's going to cost a little bit less versus most of its rivals. Has the latest 2024 Mitsubishi Outlander P-HEV continue to stack up? Stay tuned to find out. Now the plug-in hybrid version of the Mitsubishi Outlander is certainly a unique offering in this segment so before we start talking about the styling of this vehicle I thought I'd pop the hood and show you guys what's powering this thing. Now we saw this engine reintroduced last year. It essentially has the same gas engine as the previous generation but Mitsubishi made some big upgrades to the battery pack and to the electric motors. Now as you can see underneath this hood instead of the Nissan provided four-cylinder that you get in the gas only version of the Outlander this model you actually uses a Mitsubishi sourced 2.4 liter four-cylinder naturally aspirated engine that runs on the Atkinson cycle. It also has myvec variable valve timing technology. Again this engine the gas engine is carried over from the previous generation. It makes 132 horsepower on its own and 144 pound-feet of torque. However you have two electric motors on this vehicle. There's one at the front and then one at the rear providing standard all-wheel drive. The electric motors deliver between 174 to 200 plus horsepower depending of course on the drive mode that you're in. Combined total output for this model is 248 horsepower that's around 70 more versus the gas only version of the Outlander and a whopping 332 pound-feet of torque. That torque figure is pretty significant. It's going to provide that instantaneous torque that a lot of people are looking for when you look for an electric vehicle. Now it all goes out through a one speed reduction gear transmission which is a different transmission versus what you find in like the RAV4 Prime which uses an ECVT or the which uses a six-speed auto and this vehicle has a 20 kilowatt hour lithium-ion battery pack. About 16.8 is usable providing up to 38 miles of electric only range. Now Mitsubishi says when you have the battery pack full and you run it in hybrid mode it'll do around 64 mpge. That number really doesn't mean much. If you guys deplete the battery pack and run it as a hybrid vehicle it'll do around 25 27 mpg 26 combined on regular gas. This has roughly a 14.8 gallon fuel tank so you're looking at around 380 miles of range on just the gas portion. Around 420 if you combine the gas and the EV portion. That range is average to below average. A lot of plug-in hybrid vehicles will typically do over 500 miles of range so Mitsubishi has a little bit of work to do on the efficiency of the gas engine. The company doesn't quote a 0-60 time but the last time I tested this car I got six and a half seconds. It should be pretty much the same. This vehicle will tow a maximum of 1,500 pounds. It also weighs in at just over 4,700 pounds because again of that heavy battery pack. But closing the hood let's go ahead and talk about the exterior styling of this vehicle. Now this fourth generation came out back in late 2021 and I have to say the styling of this vehicle was very polarizing but also very unique when it first came out and you can see two years later this design certainly continues to stand out in a great way. This particular color that I'm showing you is red diamond. It's a beautiful very luscious shade of red with sparkly metallic fleck and it's very much comparable to the sole red crystal or the supersonic red that you find from Mazda and from Toyota. You can see all Outlander PHEVs come with these kind of unique headlights where you have an LED daytime running light, LED turn signal that's divorced from the actual headlights which are down here. You have an LED low and high beam and you also have LED fog lights. There's a lot of chrome work that you're going to find in the Mitsubishi traditional grille which kind of reminds me of an hourglass or the Lexus spindle grille. If you guys don't like all the chrome here you can black out the chrome as part of a blackout package or you can also leave the chrome as well. A lot of people like the chrome. It certainly makes the grille look a lot more standout-ish. You can also get an LED accent light that kind of goes from this portion to this portion and it also creates a really nice light signature at night. Down here you can see the front splitter tries to resemble a skid plate but this is not an off-road style SUV. You have some functional openings and some active grille shutters along with some nicely integrated parking sensors but overall from the front end you really can't tell this is the plug-in hybrid version because it essentially has the same fascia as the gas only model. Now moving around the side profile you can see this is a larger SUV by the class. It's kind of like a tweener vehicle. It's a compact SUV but it's also approaching midsize at 185.4 inches long overall. This is around three to five inches longer than most of its rivals. Its wheelbase is 106.5 inches long so compared to the previous generation Outlander Mitsubishi stretched the wheelbase by an inch and a half and they made it about an inch longer overall to again give us a little bit more interior space and more of an imposing stance. Now you can see the wheels. These are the 20 inch wheels that you get with the SEL trim. My particular model or test car is the SEL with the premium package. It also has a Bridgestone Blizzac winter tire. That's not the factory OEM equipped tires. It was winter but now we are now in spring. It's riding on a 235 by 45 R20 Bridgestone Blizzac tire. Again most or most vehicles obviously when you buy the vehicle new it won't come with these tires. You have a 13.8 inch brake rotor at the front, a 13 inch rotor at the rear, all independent suspension, no adaptive dampers but this car offers around 7.9 inches of ground clearance which is decent amount for an SUV. You can see the wheel trim here is unpainted. There's a big badge here that literally says EV but it also says plug-in hybrid at the top on in a smaller script. I don't like this badge. I think it looks tacky. It looks almost like an aftermarket add-on. Mitsubishi really needs to shrink the size of this and just put it at the lower portion of the front fender. I think that would look a lot better. The mirrors are body colored. They're power folding. You have 360 camera integrated turn signals which is nice. The SEL trim also includes the two-tone paint scheme with the red or the gloss black roof with the red color. You can see a panoramic sunroof is included with the premium package that my test car has and you can see there is some chrome trim along the window trim. I like the boxy proportion of this car. I mean when you look at it you really can't you know tell this vehicle shares a platform with the Nissan Rogue and that's a good thing. It has its own unique design language and this red just looks fantastic in this bright sunlight and look at the rear. The rear doesn't look quite as distinctive as the front. In fact this is where I see a little bit of Nissan resemblance. It looks a little bit bland and anonymous to me so I'm hoping when Mitsubishi does a refresh they'll kind of do something to make the rear stand out a little bit more. You can get a bolder rear spoiler at the back. My test car doesn't have it. You can see there's a rear window wiper. The taillights are a combination of LED and incandescent. The brake light and taillight is LED but you can see the reverse light and the turn signal appears to be an incandescent. You can see there's badging back here galore and there's another P-HEV badge here to let everyone know you have the special plug-in hybrid model and then down here you can see it looks like almost like a skid plate design but it's that silver paint that looks pretty good with the red exterior color. No visible exhaust tips but integrated parking sensors. The charge plug is going to be located here on the passenger side which when you open that up you can see it's a manual door and the Outlander P-HEV was one of the first plug-in hybrid vehicles that included a level three fast charger. Now you can see it uses the CHAdeMO plug. CHAdeMO is being phased away and this only maxes out at 50 kilowatts but it's a nice option because if you find a CHAdeMO plug at a level three fast charger you can basically go from 10 to 80 percent in about 38 minutes which is actually a little bit slow. This vehicle has an onboard charger that that will pump in 3.3 kilowatts which is very slow. It's about half the you know charging speed of a RAV4 Prime. So basically on a level two which uses the plug this vehicle takes around six and a half hours to charge from empty to full which again is very slow. A RAV4 Prime will do that same charge in about half the time so I was hoping Mitsubishi would put a faster level two charger but they do offer the CHAdeMO plug but again most people don't need to have a need to fast charge their plug-in hybrid vehicles. Let's go ahead and take a look at the trunk capacity of this vehicle. When I open up the trunk you can see a third row is going to standard on this model and you can see I have the third row up. It does eat into the cargo space but there's still like a nice little deep recessed well that you can put stuff in because that's essentially where the third row lives. It also comes with a mobile charger here which is a level one connector obviously and if you want to get rid of the third row which I suspect most people are going to get rid of it and just kind of have it just sit into the floor so basically you pull this strap and then you pull this down and that will fold the third row down into its place. You have around 31 cubic feet of storage space with the third row seat folded. It actually does create a flat floor but I have something in the way right there so let me see if I can pull this out. There we go and it should close down for you. You can see when you fold down the second row that'll increase the cargo to around 61 cubic feet of space which 61 is good although you will find a little bit more in like the RAV4 Prime which offers up to almost 70 cubic feet of space. Keep in mind however those second row seats they do slide forward and they also fold down as well but overall in terms of practicality the Outlander P-HEV does offer average to slightly above average amounts of storage space. So on the exterior the Mitsubishi Outlander P-HEV continues to be a relatively attractive vehicle but what about the inside? This is where you're going to spend most of your time. Before we get inside however let me show you guys the key fob. This is the intelligent access key that Mitsubishi includes on most of the trims if you go for an SE. The ES won't include their smart key access system. You can see it's a unique Mitsubishi key with their usual buttons for lock, unlock, power liftgate, and then panic function. No remote start from the actual fob although I believe if you have access to the Mitsubishi Connect app you should be able to remote start this vehicle from your smartphone. As you can see when I approach the vehicle it has a very traditional door handle here. There's a button on the outside if I touch that that will lock the door. It'll also power fold the mirrors. This vehicle does not offer a walk-away lock or unlock feature. If I touch the back of the door handle that doesn't unlock it you have to touch the button again and that's what unlocks the door for you. Now my particular test car has a great color combination with the red diamond exterior color. However if you guys go for this trim you better like a black interior with the saddle tan accents because this is your only option which I actually think it looks fantastic with the diamond cross stitching which has contrasting stitching. This is also the upgraded semi-aniline leather which offers three-stage heat and it also offers a massage function. The massage function is part of that premium package along with the semi-aniline leather. You have a 12-way power driver seat with two-person memory. Again these seats look a lot more upscale than you expect it to be. They're also very comfortable and supportive. I just wish Mitsubishi would add a cooled seat. I would actually give up the massage function to get the cooled seat or really it would be nice to have both but everything again is to a price point. Now looking at the door panel you can see there's a beautiful nice padded leather area here with real leather and cross stitching on this little upper portion. This area here of the door panel is hard touch plastic which is fine you won't touch that. There's some piano black plastic trim aluminum accented door handle although I think it's just a fake silver painted plastic. Nice and rest your elbows here. I also like the way the window controls look where they are silver and they're one touch up down for all four. A lot of these controls are a mixture of Mitsubishi and Nissan which is interesting. There's a fake carbon fiber look trim. There's an upgraded 10 speaker Bose stereo. Down here it's hard touch plastic with some nice storage in the door pockets which is again a great touch but overall the the cabin makes a nice first impression. Now stepping inside you can see it has a nice easy SUV step in height. As I get in and shut the door the door has a nice solid sounding thunk and you can see the interior reminds you a lot of the current generation Rogue and that's because it shares a lot of technology from Nissan which is a good thing. Now you can see starting that up the power button is located right here where you'd expect it to be. Turn the vehicle on you can see or you can hear it has a unique Mitsubishi startup chime so it won't remind you of a Nissan. All Outlander P halves will come standard with this 12.3 inch fully digital cluster which is customizable. It again is the same cluster that you find in some Nissan models but the colors and the font has changed a little bit to show that it again Mitsubishi made some changes there. The upgraded 9-inch touchscreen is included I believe if you guys go for the SE trims and up. This includes wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It's a variation of the Nissan Connect system although I guess Mitsubishi calls it Mitsubishi Connect. You can see when I go to the embedded system here it looks exactly like what you find in the Mitsubishi or the Nissan Rogue although the colors and font have changed slightly. The CarPlay function is wireless and it works nicely. The graphics and resolution also looks pretty high tech and high quality although the screen itself is starting to look a little bit small. The base ES version will have an 8-inch display without the wireless function for the CarPlay you have to connect it via a wired connection but this is again still a pretty nice touch. I did notice sometimes it is a little bit laggy at least the graphics are good but I think that it could be a little bit snappier in terms of the software. Now a heads-up display is included when you guys go for the premium package as well there's a soft touch injection molded plastic here. Nice beautiful leather. This is really plush actually on this portion of the dash with the contrast stitching. Down here you can see more of that saddle color although this is slightly padded. It feels like it's covered in leather but I could be wrong about that. I do like the alloy look trim, the piano black plastic, the vents also have that nice traditional horizontal look. Down here you can see there's tri-zone climate control with nice knobs and buttons. You can see there's also nice knobs and buttons in the infotainment system. If I push that camera button you can see there's your full 360 camera with MOD moving object detection. You can see that's a Nissan terminology. The camera quality and resolution is also good. This has rear cross-traffic braking, parking sensors and whatnot. So again those are all great tech features that a lot of people are going to love. You can see there's also a curb view there to keep you from curbing those 20-inch wheels and then this car also has embedded GPS although the GPS isn't anything to sneeze about. Most of you are just going to use the CarPlay function and use the Google Maps or the Waze or Apple Maps and whatnot. So you can see down here I love the knobs for the actual climate control function. You have a heated windshield, heated steering wheel which is just one level, three level heated seats. You can see there's plenty of empty buttons here where there could be a cooled seat function which is frustrating how a Mitsubishi doesn't offer that but neither does Nissan. If I push the massaging seat button you can see it turns it on. I can go to adjust here and I can basically choose from three levels. Refreshing is my favorite. There's also a relaxing and then a lumbar. Lumbar is probably my least favorite but the refreshing or the relaxing I think provides a decent massage especially considering you can't even find massaging seats in most vehicles in the class. It also includes it on the passenger side which again is an unexpected touch. Your wireless phone charging pad is here although I must say my iPhone 14 Pro Max fits there although it doesn't always reliably charge my phone. There's also some two or two USB charging ports here a C and an A. There's also a power outlet here. There's some nice kind of diamond textured aluminum trim on this little portion which I like because the piano black plastic here shows scratches annoyingly. You can see this controls the one speed reduction gear transmission. Push the trigger and go up to go to reverse. Kick it back to go to drive. There's also an engine braking function that allows you to take it says B3 although I think that's the level of regen. You can also adjust that via these little paddles where you can adjust the level of regen. There's also an innovation pedal or innovative pedal Mitsubishi calls it that basically is another term for their one pedal drive. Your drive mode selector you can see there's two different buttons. There's a EV mode, save, charge, and then a normal function. That's basically going to tell the hybrid powertrain to either run in electricity or recharge the battery or run it in hybrid mode. And then there's a separate drive mode selector here which offers one two three four five six seven different drive modes along with downhill assist control. There's a normal, an eco, and a power function. There's also a tarmac, a gravel, a snow, and a mud section. Now this vehicle offers around 7.9 inches of ground clearance and no skid plates so the mud and rut section is definitely going to be a little bit far-fetched but it's nice that they give you this kind of big drive mode selector. This area here looks pretty nice. I like that. You can see there's electronic parking brake here, cup holders, and the nice padded center console area. If I open this up you can see this offers a decent amount of storage although some competitors offer a little bit larger center consoles. You can see there's a little bit of additional storage here and here which is nice. The seats also feel pretty plush. They're comfortable and supportive. The massage function also works well. Again, I just wish I had cooled seats. The passenger side here actually does have the same 12-way power adjustment. It just doesn't, actually it has that and it also has the two-person memory so wasn't expecting to find that. So there are some unexpected luxury touches in this vehicle that are a nice surprise. The glove compartment you can see is damped but not lined with felt. It offers a decent size. It's a bin style. You have an auto dimming rear view mirror but no digital camera rear view mirror. There's some incandescent lights for the map lighting and a little bit of LED accent lighting at night. But overall the cabin definitely has a high quality feel, has most of the tech that you're going to want. Mitsubishi was smart here to borrow some tech from Nissan and it also has nice visibility, comfortable seats, and overall it's a really pleasant place to spend time. Moving to the back seat of the Outlander P-HAB. This is again another area where a lot of customers may choose this car because it is a bit larger than most of its rivals which means you have a little bit bigger back seat accommodations. Now you can see the rear door has the same nice soft padded leather on this upper portion padded over here. Hard touch plastic here with piano black plastic trim. I love the mirror the window controls which again are aluminum accented and they're one touch up down. And you also get these manual retractable sunshades which is not a feature that you find in the compact segment. So again great family car because of those options. Now you can see the seats themselves. The second row is very generous. I love the contrasting stitching of the diamond quilting. These seats are also three level heated and they also give you the recline function and they slide forward and back which is important to make room for people in that third row which offers non-existent space. But when you're sitting here in the second row and I close the door you can see there's around 38 inches of leg room back here. This is with the seat all the way back. If I move this, if I start moving the seat up to accommodate the third row you can see this is probably where you need to have the position of the second row to actually give you leg space in the third row. And you can see when it's in this position my knees are jammed up against the seat. This is where I'd have it to drive. So again most of you probably wouldn't do that. You can move it back another notch here to give you a little bit more space but again it is eating into that third row space so keep that in mind. You can see there's storage compartments here which is nice. More storage compartments here for a cell phone and other other knickknacks. You can see there's rear seat air vents back here. Three level heated seats along with your own climate control functions. You have two USB charging ports there an A and a C which again is a super nice touch. And you fold this if you want to fold this down you can see actually it doesn't give me an armrest which I thought there was an armrest here but surprisingly this is not function as an armrest although it looks like I could pull this. There we go. So once you pull that down you can see there is an armrest with two cup holders although no additional storage. This headrest again is adjustable to give the middle passenger here an actual head restraint. The back seat themselves they actually have the same plush semi-aniline leather which is a nice touch. And then if I look at the headroom space you can see headroom is fine. The panoramic sunroof does let in light. It kind of does eat into your headroom space here. I kind of wish it came a little bit further back but again this pano sunroof is included if you guys go for the premium package trim and up. But let's go ahead and hop into the third row as I torture myself and entertain you guys to get back here. Now you can see the third row is accessed by pulling this lever here. The seat will slide forward. You can see there's with the seat all the way back on that side. That is basically non-existent in terms of space. So if you want to put somebody back here in the seats all the way back they basically are going to have no legs. But let's go ahead and get back here for comical reasons because I'm not the tallest person ever. But as you can see when I'm sitting back here my hair is literally touching the ceiling of the or the roof of this vehicle and that's if I try to lean back. I can't lean back because again I have to kind of slouch to let myself have the headroom or I have to cock my leg over to this side. So this is definitely even small even for somebody my height at five foot seven. You can see there's another view with the seat all the way back. This is with the seat slid all the way forward. Now if I want to pull this back you can see that's where it locks itself into place and I could sit back here but my headroom space is non-existent for the most part. But again when it's in this position the second row offers no space and that's precisely why I said don't buy this vehicle for the third row. It's a useless third row even for small kids. You have you do have some you know cup holder storage back here. You have some seat belts here all hard touch plastic. Obviously there's only seats two across. This head restraint does again flip down because the headrests do get in the way of your view when it's up but it's necessary because without it you're essentially going to have no head restraints. So overall as you can see the third row is for emergency use only and it basically just negates the usefulness of the second row. So my recommendation it's here for in a pinch but if you want something that actually can carry seven people take a look at one of its bigger rivals. So here we are back in the Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid. It's been about a year since I had one of these vehicles for a full week to test and I remember back then when I first drove this car I was pleasantly surprised. For a car company as small as Mitsubishi the company pulled out all the stops to deliver a surprisingly good plug-in hybrid vehicle that offers a third row that has the right size and proportions. It's a handsome vehicle and sales have really shown that because Mitsubishi sales are up especially this car and the regular Outlander are leading the pack. This is the best-selling vehicle in the Mitsubishi lineup. Now we're starting off the car with around a 95% state of charge. It showed 42 miles of range on a full charge. I'll talk about what I'm getting in the real world later on in the review but let's go ahead and test out the 0-60 performance. Now I have it in power mode and in hybrid mode so this is going to give us the best 0-60 time. It's going to give us the full 248 horsepower 332 pound-feet of torque. Let's go ahead and brake torque it. 0-60 in 6.54 seconds. That's a surprisingly good time I must admit and again this vehicle functions primarily as an electric car and then the gas engine while it can deliver power directly to just the front wheels it primarily just converts the energy into or pushes the energy back into the battery. So this vehicle functions more like an EV but again when you are really demanding maximum acceleration it can function like an actual hybrid where the gas engine is providing engine power to the drive wheels but only the front wheels because the rear axle is powered by just the electric motor. But overall I think that time is a pretty decent time. The RAV4 Prime however is going to be almost a second faster but this is around a half a second quicker versus the Kia Sorento plug-in hybrid. So that's something to keep in mind. The Hyundai Santa Fe plug-in hybrid is no longer going to be available in the U.S. with the new generation but let's go ahead and try it here this time. I'm still in power, still in hybrid mode. This time I didn't brake torque it. Yeah you feel it takes off with authority because of that electric motor torque. This time we got seven seconds and that's with it more going slightly uphill. On a level surface it's a little bit obviously going to be a bit faster. Brake torquing it I'd say makes a pretty minuscule difference. Most people are not going to brake torque it anyways so that's something to again remember I only do it for testing purposes. The one thing about the Outlander P-HAVE that does you know let me down is the handling dynamics and just the suspension tuning. This car feels incredibly soft when you're going around corners. Now there are different drive modes here. There's a tarmac mode here which I guess is supposedly going to be the road going mode but again the steering in this car provides very little to no feedback. It's also on the super light side. It's really slow to respond and the body controls there's just a lot of jiggling back and forth motions in this vehicle. Mitsubishi engineers I think could tune the suspension to be a little bit tighter feeling well without sacrificing the ride quality because this car is a family SUV so you're not really going to care too much about the sportiness of the drive but there are times where it feels wallowy. It feels heavy. This vehicle does weigh around 4,700 pounds so that hybrid battery pack the 20 kilowatt battery pack adds around 500 pounds of additional weight or 700 pounds of additional weight but I'm going to go ahead and switch the drive mode back here into its normal setting or we're going to go into yeah just its normal setting. I'm going to push this little button here to push the car back into its EV mode because I want to see what this car can do zero to 60 wise in just EV mode. Now just like the RAV4 Prime you can't accelerate on electric power alone. There is a click point at the end of the pedal that will wake the gas engine up and cancel the EV priority mode so you can't go past that click point. I think the last time I zero to 60 tested in EV mode it did it in like 11 seconds so 11 and a half seconds so you are going to be noticeably slower when you're in EV only mode but in this mode it is pleasant because this car just has a reduction gear transmission so a one speed transmission even when it's in its hybrid mode it still only has a one speed transmission so it functions a lot like an EV all the time. It makes you feel like you're driving just an EV only vehicle so that's one of the cool benefits of Mitsubishi kind of going with this route with their plug-in hybrid technology. It's a little bit different versus Toyota which uses an eCVT and then Kia uses a six speed automatic transmission which I don't think is quite the best partner for a fully electric vehicle. Let's go ahead and see what we can get here just by flooring it but not going past the click point. It feels pretty fast actually but again once you go all the way to the floor without going past the click point it feels noticeably slower because I think you only have like a hundred you only have half the power versus when you have it running in full so 11.68 seconds there so again double the time and that's because you have roughly half the power. The gas engine adds around 131 horsepower the EV part however can do between 174 to 201 horsepower so technically the EV portion does have more power versus the gas and that allows you to basically drive this car in pure EV mode and have enough power to get around town. Now on the highway you do notice that it could use the extra power but still you have 332 pound-feet of torque and that torque figure is just absolutely you know wonderful when you're driving this vehicle around in town because you can put your foot down and just kind of accelerates with authority pushes you back in the seat there's no delay and I think that's the reason why the PHEV powertrain is probably the one to get if you guys can expend the additional money. Now this car also has what Mitsubishi calls the innovative pedal which is basically their version of a regen braking one pedal drive. It can provide up to 0.3 G's of deceleration forces so I lift off the brake or the throttle the car slows down it actually blends friction braking with regen braking which is a technically older technology a lot of these other newer EVs or plug-in hybrid vehicles can actually just do full you know regen braking as opposed to using the friction brakes and blending it. It also won't bring you down to a full stop when you're using the regen brakes you have to still kind of hover your foot over the brake and then hit the brake to actually slow the vehicle down to a complete stop but it's still nice and putting some energy back in the battery pack so that's pretty good. In terms of the seat comfort these seats are also surprisingly supple these are the semi-aniline seats that you get. I'm sitting here getting a massage which is not something that I expect to find in a Mitsubishi vehicle but the massage function I have to admit works pretty well in the refreshing mode and it's included when you guys go for this premium package along with the semi-aniline leather you can see out of the front the side out of the rear pretty nicely this also has kind of a variation of the Nissan ProPILOT assist driver assistance tech where it also works well it has adaptive cruise automatic emergency braking lane keep assist the ride is also nice and comfortable the powertrain is relatively quiet in fact it's actually a little bit quieter than versus when I first tested this vehicle a year ago you still have some strange electric motor noises that you hear but it's not quite as loud as I remember the engine also is surprisingly quiet when you use it in full hybrid mode it's not quite as loud as the engine that you hear in the Toyota RAV4 Prime which is surprising I wasn't expecting the Mitsubishi to have a quieter gas engine versus the Toyota remember this engine the gas engine is a Mitsubishi 2.4 liter engine not the Nissan 2.5 that you get in the non-hybrid version and in terms of the range in my weeks for the testing I averaged around 35 miles of pure EV only driving now this car is rated at 38 so that's pretty good you know considering what the EPA is rated at in terms of fuel efficiency in my week's worth of testing I averaged 25 miles to the gallon in hybrid mode so that is where this car really suffers compared to the Toyota plug-in hybrid powertrain or even the Kia plug-in hybrid powertrain the Toyota will easily do 10 mpg better the Kia will easily do over 30 miles a gallon so maybe 5 to 6 mpg better so Mitsubishi has some work to do with the gas engine it needs better fuel efficiency because the overall total range of this car is right around 400 miles with the EV and the gas equivalent because you have a 14 and a half gallon fuel tank so this is where the total range of this car should be over 500 that's what the Toyota is going to give you the Mitsubishi gives you about 100 to 150 less versus what the Toyota plug-in hybrid powertrain will give you but still you know those minor quibbles aside there's still a lot to like about this vehicle and it's no surprise to me that sales are up in fact total sale volume of the plug-in hybrid accounts for almost 20 percent of the sales mix so if Mitsubishi can continue building this vehicle and pumping out production I think their sales numbers are only going to improve I definitely think that if you guys can spend the extra money and it's a whopping 12 grand more if you guys want the plug-in hybrid powertrain it's definitely the you know engine to get but there are still a couple of minor things that I want Mitsubishi to address perhaps they'll do it in the mid-cycle refresh which will probably be coming in 2025 as a 2026 model but overall even though this car has been on the market for now a couple years uh it's there's still plenty to like about the Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid so with around 42,500 Outlanders sold in America in 2023 that actually represents a nearly six percent increase in terms of volume for the Outlander this vehicle is literally Mitsubishi's best-selling model and it also had their best sales year ever in the company's 22-year history and after spending the week with the plug-in hybrid version which by the way Mitsubishi said that last year the plug-in hybrid accounted for about 16 percent of the sales mix so nearly 7,000 of those 42,500 were the Outlander PHEV again sales continue to increase I think they said it was like a 200 plus percent increase which is pretty significant so this vehicle here obviously there's plenty to like about it the regular version is going to offer the space the technology the premium touches that a lot of you probably didn't expect to find in a Mitsubishi the plug-in hybrid just takes that to the next level as you guys saw the powertrain is a lot more refined than I expected it to be it functions primarily as an electric vehicle and then the gas engine provides that additional juice which again even in hybrid mode this feel this vehicle is smooth it's quiet the gas engine is quiet because it only has one gear there are no you know shift shocks you do hear occasionally some weird electric motor noises but they are just you know the normal noises that you're going to hear from an electric motor doing its job as you guys saw 0 to 60 in six and a half seconds in hybrid mode is plenty fast for most people in EV mode it takes around 11 and a half seconds which is around two seconds slower versus the RAV4 Prime but again some of you would argue that you may prefer the styling of this you may prefer the extra you know cargo capacity and third row seating flexibility which you can't get in a RAV4 Prime the interior is basically all Nissan which is a good thing because it comes standard with that digital display the 9-inch touchscreen with the wireless carplane android auto also works well although the screen is starting to get a little bit small the massaging seats is also a nice touch the seats are comfortable but I would like to see Mitsubishi eventually add cooled seats to this model especially at this price point I think it should have cooled seats the back seat the second row is also very spacious but again that third row is for emergency use only I actually think it's kind of pointless and useless I personally wouldn't buy this vehicle because it has a third row look at something like the Kia Sorento plug-in hybrid if you actually want something that offers a decent size third row but if you if you guys are looking to put this vehicle in your driveway pricing for the Outlander P-HEV is going to start at around $40,345 so it's around $400 more expensive versus the 2023 model it also represents around a $12,000 price increase versus the gas only version of the Outlander that is a pretty tough pill to swallow especially considering the fact that this vehicle does not qualify for the $7,500 federal tax credit because these vehicles are built in Japan if you lease the car however you do qualify for the tax credit and I've seen some pretty enticing lease deals for this model starting at around $350 a month that's as of March of 2024 be sure to check your local dealership for you know local rates in terms of financing and lease rates but my tester here being the SEL model is almost the highest trim there's essentially a new platinum edition which only comes with black and a silver roof that starts at over 50 grand this model starts over $46,000 add the premium package for $2,700 the extra charge for the red paint with destination my tester comes in at around $51,800 so 51 grand is nearly 52 grand is a lot more expensive than most of you probably anticipated to pay for a Mitsubishi and it also doesn't qualify for the tax credit so that's another ouch although if you lease the car the monthly payment should be a lot more enticing because it does qualify for the tax credit and if you also look at the this car's main rival the RAV4 Prime the Outlander does start at around $3,000 less on the base end however if you guys fully load a RAV4 Prime that's also around $52,000 so at that point I personally think that the Toyota system is more efficient it's much quicker as well and I also trust the reliability and longevity of Toyota but if you guys you know can need something with a little bit more space and you prefer the design of this I still think that the Mitsubishi Outlander P-HEV is certainly worth a look just don't buy this because it has a third row because the third row is pretty useless even for small children well that's it hope you guys enjoyed my full overview on the 2024 Mitsubishi Outlander P-HEV if you're also looking to see the latest cars I'm testing be sure to follow me on Instagram at Redline underscore reviews like us on Facebook and as always guys please keep subscribing to the Redline Reviews YouTube channel for all the latest reviews thank you so much for watching I'll catch you all in the next video.