A popular SUV - but SHOULD it be Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross hybrid review (PHEV pl
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00:00There's a good chance you've seen plenty of these in traffic before. It's the Mitsubishi Eclipse
00:04Cross. There are a lot of different versions of this little SUV available. It sits in between
00:09the ASX and the bigger Outlander in the model range for Mitsubishi and has plug-in hybrid
00:15technology available. That's the one I'm focusing on in this review but I'll also talk about the
00:19turbo petrol and why I think it could actually be a better choice for many people out there.
00:24So, let's talk about it. If you've already subscribed, thanks heaps and ring the bell if
00:28you haven't to keep up to date with all of my reviews. Let's get to it, shall we?
00:36There are two different powertrain options available in the Eclipse Cross range. The
00:39turbocharged petrol and the plug-in hybrid. I'm going to detail all the stuff you need to know
00:43about them shortly. But hey, it does mean that you've got a pretty diverse range of options
00:48available to you if you are considering an Eclipse Cross. The entry-level version is called the ES
00:53and I'm not going to dive very deep into the pricing and spec details here. You can get it
00:58with the turbocharged petrol engine and front-wheel drive or at about $16,000 and you'll be able to
01:05get it with the plug-in hybrid and all-wheel drive and to me that seems like a crazy premium to ask
01:10for plug-in hybrid technology. Up from there is the LS and you can get it with turbo petrol
01:15front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive and there's also a version with a black pack finish to it as
01:20well if that's what you appreciate. Up from there is the Aspire grade. It costs a little bit more
01:25but you get some extra sweeteners and it also has the choice of the plug-in hybrid. Now on the inside
01:32it's getting things like a dual zone climate control and heated front seats. It also has
01:37vehicle-to-load charging capability for the plug-in hybrid models. And up from there is the
01:43Exceed grade which is this one here and look the Exceed seems to be pretty expensive if I'm honest
01:49and what's crazy is that you do have to pay this much money in the Mitsubishi Eclipse Crossrange to
01:55get LED headlights. That is absurd in my opinion. So yes the plug-in hybrid models do come across as
02:02pretty expensive but in Australia right now there are fringe benefits tax exemptions for plug-in
02:07hybrids until the end of March 2025 which means you could save thousands if not tens of thousands
02:13of dollars if you are looking into a vehicle like this. So plug-in hybrids might make sense to you,
02:18turbo petrol might make sense to you, I've got a few alternatives that might make more
02:22sense to you as well. Let's talk about them now.
02:27If you want an SUV that's about this size and you want something that's maybe a bit more modern
02:32but still with a turbocharged engine and still at a reasonable price point I reckon you should go and
02:36check out the Honda ZRV. I really like that car. I think that the size and space and practicality
02:42on offer is pretty good for most people and in fact it does stand up pretty well in terms of
02:47the drive experience too. There's a heap of different versions available including a hybrid
02:52model if that's what you want but you have to spend a fair bit of money to get it and I don't
02:55think the hybrid's the best one in that lineup. I would choose one of the entry-level versions
02:59because I think it just stacks up really well at the base grades. Now if you're thinking well maybe
03:03this is a little bit small and the ZRV is a bit too small and I definitely want plug-in hybrid
03:08technology, go and have a look at the new BYD Sealion 6. I know it's a silly name but that car
03:14offers immense value for money, less than $50,000 starting price point and it gets heaps of features
03:21for that cash and almost 100kms of EV driving range from its battery pack and then you've got
03:27the efficiency of the petrol engine that kicks in when you need it so it does seem to be a really
03:33compelling choice for people who are thinking plug-in hybrid might be right for them and I can
03:38see why but tell me if you'd pick any of those or something different let me know in the comments.
03:45So it's in between the ASX and the Outlander in terms of size, just over four and a half
03:51meters long and look you're either going to like the design of this car or you're going to have
03:55already skipped this video and gone to the next one because well it's not for everyone. Okay let's
04:00just talk about the back end design. It saw some changes as part of a pretty recent update and I
04:07think it looks more like a Lancer Sportback now than it ever did but it's also got the big Eclipse
04:12Cross badge across the back and let's have a look in the boot. This is the top spec version so it
04:17gets an electric tailgate and you can see for yourself that it does have well a decent amount
04:24of room. It's not the biggest boot that's for sure and I'll put the number of litres on your screen
04:29now and that is also worse than if you buy the turbo petrol version which has a bigger boot
04:35whether you choose the front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive model and look in terms of
04:39usability in here you do have some good features. You've got a power point which is a really handy
04:44thing to have. You've also got a little light there and shopping bag hook and this is your
04:50charging cable case. You get the cables included if you buy a high grade but you don't in the base
04:55models which is a bit cheapo I reckon. That's where you'll find your jack and underneath the
04:59boot floor well you're not going to find a spare wheel but you can find a spot to put your cables
05:06and your tyre repair kit and your 12 volt battery is under there as well.
05:11Yeah so I think that it's okay but certainly not terrific for the size of this SUV.
05:20It feels old in here people there is no denying it this car does feel older than some of the other
05:27rivals out there that you might have a look at and part of the reason that it doesn't feel very
05:32modern is this driver info screen. Yes it does have a digital element to the screen but no digital
05:39speedometer which is ridiculous and you've also got this analog taco style EV readout which just
05:46doesn't look very high-tech. Screens these days are usually sitting there in high-tech cars
05:52and it really does detract from the high-tech factor in terms of the interior and so does this
05:58small-ish touchscreen media system. Yeah you've got sat-nav if that really matters to you and
06:03you've got Apple CarPlay as well but it's not necessarily the best system to use. It doesn't
06:10have the biggest amount of functionality but hey at least it's got volume and tuning dials
06:16which I do appreciate. It's got digital radio as well. I've got my phone connected up to Bluetooth
06:22and yes it does require a cable for Apple CarPlay if you do want to use Apple CarPlay.
06:28You've got a little screen here with a bit of energy info so you can see what's happening with
06:33your system and you've also got a energy monitor so you can see what's happening with your system
06:44and look you might find that those are all really really handy things and you can also
06:48dwell down a little bit more into your energy consumption and so forth but
06:52it's sort of geeky in a way but not very high-tech looking and not as high-tech as this
07:00car probably should feel. At least though you do have a charging timer control system in here so
07:06you can go in here and set different parameters to adjust when you want to charge the car so if
07:13you know you're going to be going away or you're going to be going to work in the morning you can
07:17set it so that it charges overnight off-peak and saves you a bit of money at home. So screen's okay
07:24it's not great it's okay but down below you've got a couple of vents you've also got manual
07:30controls for your air conditioning. The red font really just pulls it back into the past in my
07:37opinion. It just doesn't match with the other elements of this cabin. I'll turn that off so
07:42it's not as noisy. You do have a couple of USB ports down here a steering wheel heater in this
07:47spec as well which is nice to see. A 12 volt there as well that's where you can turn on your vehicle
07:53to load charging and there's no wireless phone charger there which is a little bit disappointing.
07:58You've got heated seat buttons I like that and you've also got a drive mode controller there.
08:03Your shifter is a bit of a weird looking thing you have to sort of go up and across to go into
08:08reverse or down to go into drive and there's an EV button there as well so that means that you can
08:17choose when the car is driving in EV and there's also a save charge button so if you know that
08:23you're going to be needing EV for whatever reason if you want to creep around at night
08:28you can save the battery charge and basically just use the petrol engine instead if that's
08:35what you want to do. Now back here you've got a pair of cup holders there's also a covered centre
08:40console bin and yeah you get a leathery seat trim which is actually kind of nice and you get bottle
08:45holders in the doors but it's hardly an inspiring looking cabin in my opinion and even though you do
08:51get a dual sunroof setup so you've got a shade there and a shade at the back as well which my
08:59daughter thought was really kind of cool but it squeaks so during my time I've noticed that
09:06there's a squeak coming from up in here in this car. It's a brand new car so that's not great.
09:11All right let's check out the back seat space and see what it's like. This seat here is set for my
09:16driving position you can see I've got enough knee room here it's not exceptional but it's not too
09:21bad. Foot room's pretty good there's mat pockets on the seat backs but you don't get any directional
09:26air vents which is a bummer in my opinion however you do get heated seats for the outboard seats
09:33which might be great if you like having a hot bottom but not so good if you like having air
09:39in your face. So in the back here you've got ISOFIX points and three top tether points as well. I've
09:45had my daughter's seat in here for a couple of days, plenty of room for a person in front and
09:51also a three-year-old with kicky feet to sit behind and you've also got a foot down armrest
09:57here with cup holders too. So it does have some amenities that you would expect and it's just
10:03maybe a little bit limited in terms of headroom. Let me show you, headroom's just a little bit tight
10:09especially when you're getting in and out you really have to watch that top corner there
10:14because if you're a taller person you might bump your head repeatedly, he said from experience.
10:22The more affordable versions of the Eclipse Cross run a 1.5 litre turbo petrol engine. It comes as
10:29standard with a CVT transmission, so a continuously variable automatic, that means it might not be to
10:35everyone's tastes and it does have the choice of front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive if that's
10:40what you need. And then there's this one here which is the plug-in hybrid, it uses a 2.4 litre
10:46non-turbocharged petrol engine which is teamed to two electric motors, one at the front axle,
10:51one at the back and that means that it's all-wheel drive. Now it also has a super all-wheel control
10:58transmission which basically determines when it should use petrol engine, when it should use
11:03electric motors and distributes the power and torque as is required. So it is a pretty high-tech
11:10powertrain and it does have a decent amount of grunt but let's talk about what it's like when
11:14it comes to charging and your EV driving range. If you need to fill up with petrol it's on the
11:22passenger side, if you want to fill up with electricity you'll be using the driver's side
11:26charging ports. Yes there are two, so you've got an AC charge port there and the charge rate is
11:34actually pretty low for that, 3.7 kilowatts, that's not as quick as some of the other plug-in hybrids
11:39out there. You'll see on your screen now the time it should take to recharge using AC charging.
11:45Yeah, not amazing because it's only a pretty small battery pack, it's a lithium-ion battery pack just
11:50over 13 kilowatt hours and hey if you do find that you want to fast charge for whatever reason
11:56you've got a CHAdeMO plug here. Now CHAdeMO is a bit unusual, it means that it's not quite as
12:02readily available as type 2 combination plugs out there if you do just want to do a quick
12:06fast charge and you won't be fast charging with this because the maximum rate is 22 kilowatts
12:12which is slow for fast charging. Look it doesn't have a massive battery pack as I said
12:17and the EV driving range is just 55 kilometers, so is it actually 55 kilometers of EV driving?
12:25Let's go find out shall we?
12:30All right so first off we're driving in EV mode and I've got the regen brakes set to their most
12:36aggressive setting, still not very aggressive, it's not like single pedal driving in an EV
12:41that actually will drive just using the accelerator pedal. You've still got to use the brakes,
12:46it's just that you can basically tailor it to feel different and have less rolling resistance
12:52if that's what you want. It does mean that you will be more likely to be topping up your EV battery
12:58if you are in the most assertive regen battery mode, so that's why I choose it because I want
13:04to get the most out of this battery pack. And speaking of which I've done heaps of EV driving
13:08so far over this test with this car and I have to say the thing that is standing out most to me
13:15is that it is very very adversely affected by gradients. So if you start going uphill you'll
13:23see the EV range drop from 55-60 kilometers indicated to like 15 kilometers over about a 10k
13:32span. I live in the Blue Mountain so I did go uphill and that's what happened so that's not
13:37ideal but if you do do a lot of open road driving or maybe you start your day at the top of a hill
13:45you might be really impressed by it because well you can get more EV range out of it if you are
13:52driving on the flat even at 100 k's an hour or 110 on the freeway. So yeah I mean it is reasonably
13:59usable but I'll put on screen now how far I got with my full battery charge so you can
14:06see for yourself whether you think that it's good enough for your needs.
14:12What's great about it though is that when you are done with that battery pack when it runs out
14:17it is pretty smooth in terms of the way that it will switch over to petrol mode and it's also
14:23pretty smooth when you are driving in hybrid mode and you just want to let the system do its thing
14:27to choose which part of the powertrain should be powering the wheels at that point in time. So
14:33look for the most part I think that the drive experience in terms of accelerating and braking
14:38is good. It's certainly going to be suitable for a lot of people who are looking for their first
14:44plug-in hybrid because it's certainly not asking you to basically do a degree in science to use it.
14:51It's pretty usable and pretty easy and pretty user-friendly.
14:56All right now what's not as good about it we're going over my bumpy road. It's not my bumpy road
15:02but it's a bumpy road in the area that I live that I always go along just to see how the car behaves
15:08and I mean it doesn't do bumps very well. Other SUVs in this class ride a lot more impressively
15:17than this. It sort of feels lots of the lumps and bumps and transmits them into the cabin. So yeah
15:23from that perspective the comfort factor is not amazing. It's not terrible but certainly not
15:31to my tastes in terms of the ride. And look I'm not a huge fan of the drive experience more broadly
15:37in this car. I don't necessarily think that it handles fantastically but it does have all-wheel
15:42drive so you've got that extra traction out of corners if you really need it and if you go to
15:48the snow or something like that then that might matter to you as well. But also I'll just say that
15:53I don't think that the steering is as good as you can get from other vehicles in this class. It's
15:58just a little bit whimsical. You sort of don't really get much response until you turn on quarter
16:05of a lock of the steering and I just think that it could feel better in terms of the steering factor
16:11and I mean I know it's not a sporty SUV. If you're coming at this thinking well it looks a little bit
16:18sporty it's not that sporty to drive so don't go thinking that it is. But there are plenty of other
16:23options out there that are more fun to drive than this car. So I mentioned before that yes you do
16:28have regenerative braking so that'll constantly be trying to harness a little bit of potentially
16:34lost energy and feed it back to the battery pack to keep things as juiced up as they can be and
16:39that is good and the regen brakes don't have the assertiveness that other EVs have so you can't do
16:46a single pedal driving mode or anything like that. But it also means that it's got a pretty honest
16:51brake pedal feel when you do need to stop so there's not as much of that airiness at the top
16:56of the pedal that you can get in some other hybrid and plug-in hybrid models. So I've touched on all
17:03of the plug-in hybrid stuff that you need to know but what about the petrol turbo versions of this
17:07car? Well I've driven them extensively in the past and I reckon for a lot of people they might make
17:13a lot more sense because not only is saving 16 grand or thereabouts compared to the plug-in hybrid
17:20with all-wheel drive, you do get a pretty zesty little engine. It's not the fastest but it is
17:26pretty characterful. It's the best non-plug-in hybrid petrol engine that Mitsubishi offers in
17:32my opinion. Look, yes it does have a CVT so it's not joyful to drive but it is turbocharged so it
17:39does have enough grunt, that turbo petrol model. But I guess the big factor is you're either
17:44choosing the plug-in hybrid because you want the efficiency or you're choosing the turbo petrol
17:48because you want to save money. But let's talk about efficiency more generally and see whether
17:53this makes as much sense as it does on paper. So speaking of on paper, the official combined cycle
18:00fuel consumption figure for the plug-in hybrid model is 1.9 litres per 100 kilometres. Now
18:07if you know anything about plug-in hybrids or you've seen any of my other plug-in hybrid reviews,
18:11I'll leave a playlist link in the description, you'll know that that is only realistic or maybe
18:18possible for the first 100 kilometres because that will take into account that you've got a full
18:22battery and you deplete that battery and then you'll only use the petrol engine as required
18:27after the battery pack has been finished. But look, in my experience you're not going to see
18:351.9 litres per 100 kilometres even for that first 100 with a full charge. So let's talk about the
18:41battery range that I saw about 50 kilometres over a full charge just driving in EV mode primarily
18:49and then allowing the car to drive as a hybrid thereafter. And if you are wondering what you can
18:55achieve in that sort of situation, the combined average, yes it's pretty low, but if you go beyond
19:02that 100km and just use the petrol engine as a hybrid, it'll obviously still use the battery pack
19:08occasionally, but you're going to see something like what I'm showing you on the screen right now.
19:13So that's, yeah, it's still decent but it's certainly not mind-blowing like 1.9 litres per 100.
19:21And when it comes to the petrol turbo models, well yep, they do have a higher claimed fuel economy
19:28number. You'll see it on your screen now and yep, they actually do use a bit more than that as well.
19:34So like I said, if spending the extra money and maybe taking advantage of that FBT exemption in
19:41Australia up until the end of March makes sense to you and your budget, then the plug-in hybrid
19:47could be the better choice. But if you aren't sold on plug-in hybrid tech and you just want a
19:53decent little mid-size SUV with a turbo petrol engine, then one of the more affordable petrol
20:00versions could be a better pick. Tell me what you think in the comments.
20:06The Eclipse Cross did have a five-star ANCAP safety rating but it expired recently. That tells
20:11you how old this car is. It takes six years for a rating to expire in Australia. So yeah, it's not
20:18necessarily the newest car and it doesn't have an applicable safety rating if that matters to you.
20:22But at least across the range you're getting things like autonomous emergency braking. There's also a
20:27lane departure warning, a reversing camera and rear parking sensors and seven airbags for all
20:32models. If you step up to the LS grade or above, you also get blind spot monitoring and rear cross
20:37traffic alert. And if you step up to the Aspire model, you get adaptive cruise control, front
20:41parking sensors and a surround view camera system. And then if you step up to this grade, the Exceed,
20:46you also get those LED lights which I think should be standard on many, many more versions,
20:50if not all versions of this car, not just the top spec one. And you also get Mitsubishi's
20:56mis-acceleration system. So that will basically apparently detect if you accidentally tread on
21:02the accelerator instead of the brake at low speeds. Kind of weird tech that.
21:10Mitsubishi Australia has a conditional 10-year warranty available. So the standard warranty is
21:15five years and 100,000 kilometres. Or if you service with the brand, it'll be up to 10 years
21:21and 200,000 kilometres. For a lot of people that might make a lot of sense. But hey, you also get
21:27a hybrid battery warranty if you buy the plug-in hybrid for eight years and 160,000 kilometres.
21:32And the servicing intervals are every 12 months and 15,000 kilometres. So look, service pricing,
21:40I guess you've got to pay for the warranty yourself essentially, because the services are
21:44expensive for this car. Almost $500 a year over that 10-year period for the turbo petrol models,
21:50and close to $600 a year for the plug-in hybrid. So it doesn't necessarily make a whole lot of
21:55sense from that perspective, and if you're on a serious budget it might not make any sense at all.
22:00And also, there's four years of roadside assistance included. Which is okay, but not setting any benchmarks.
22:09So there you have it, the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross. It certainly has plenty of appeal
22:12for those who are looking for a plug-in hybrid that's a compact size. But hey, I just can't come
22:18to terms with the value for money equation here. It doesn't seem to make as much sense as it should.
22:22Tell me what you think about it in the comments section below. Would you go for it, or would you
22:25choose the turbo petrol version instead, or one of those alternatives I mentioned earlier on?
22:30If you haven't already, please like and subscribe, and I'll see you in the next one.
22:52you