Bedford in spring. Sun on the river. Our five SUVs glide across the bridge.
It’s quiet. Too quiet for cars, perhaps, but perfect for a town that doesn’t want you burning petrol. These plug-in hybrids offer 42 to 68 miles of zero-emission motoring. No smoke. No cough. Just the whine of electric motors. Civilized? Sure.
Sixteen cars started this test. Four heats later. Five remained.
The Honda CR-V? Lowest range. Only 42 miles on our Bedfordshire route. It lost ground on the A421. But it drives better than the Toyota C-HR. Better too. Practical. The cockpit feels expensive, even if it isn’t. So it made the cut.
The BMW X3 30e? It’s been a fleet car since September 2021. Sharp. Firm. Does it bounce too much? Maybe. It did 53 miles on battery before the 2.0-litre gas engine woke up. Not bad.
The Volkswagen Tayron? Bigger battery usage. The 1.5-litre engine is smaller than BMW’s, sure. But it’s cheaper to run once the juice runs out. The Tayron edged out the Audi Q3, even though the Audi has 67 extra bhp. Value beats pure power sometimes.
Then there’s the Range Rover Sport.
Rolling through Bedford, it dominates. The view is high. The cabin? Sealed hermetically. Silent. It surges forward with meaty e-motor torque. Zero emissions? Over 60 miles. But not the best.
That honour belongs to the £32,500 MG HS.
The cheap one beat the posh one. 46mpg when the battery died. Respect.
Which one wins?
Packaging: Did We Lose Trunk Space?
The Range Rover Sport demands nothing. No compromise.
It’s huge. Five metres long. Two metres wide. Fitting a plug-in system is easy. The boot is unchanged. The 38.2kWhbattery? Bigger than the base VW ID. Polo’s pack.
Weight? A penalty. 300kg added. Total weight: 2.6 tonnes. Ludicrous. But you expected that from a Land Rover.
The MG HS is lighter. 1.8 tonnes. Gains 275kg over the petrol model. The battery sits under the floor. Boot space? Unchanged.
The Volkswagen Tayron fails this test. The battery eats the boot. No room for seven seats. The whole point of the Tayron vanishes. The Skoda Kodiaq suffers the same fate.
BMW? No seven-seater X3 exists anyway. Boot shrinks. 570 litres down to 460. Painful.
The Honda? A trickster. 617 litres of boot space in the PHEV. More than the plain hybrid version.
How? Engineering. The PHEV battery sits under the rear seats. The hybrid battery goes under the floor. The rear bench slides. Versatile. Smart.
Driving Impressions
The CR-V surprised us.
We assume Toyota rules Japanese hybrids. Honda proved us wrong. The CR-V system beats the C-HR on driving pleasure. Refinement is higher. Fuel economy? Within 3mpg of the smaller Toyota.
Virtual gearshifts help. The engine hums instead of screaming. It feels like a petrol car. Good.
Tall driving position. Light steering. The interior feels built to last.
The Range Rover? Different story.
Tight towns hate it. You loom large. Pedestrians don’t hear you. The EV mode is silent. Too silent. Warning sounds only work in reverse. You might scare someone.
But the looks? Stealth Edition, matte black. It’s striking. The torque is effortless. The ride? Air suspension smooths cobbles, tarmac, ruts. It isolates you from the world.
Range? 65 miles electric. We matched it exactly.
Then the battery dies. The Ingenium inline-six takes over. Big engines hate efficiency. The Rangie dropped to 31mpg. Worst in class. Keep it charged. Or pay up.
The MG?
Quiet. Too quiet. Like the Range Rover.
Only 13.5kWH battery. Less than the C-HR. But the second-gen hybrid tech works well. The engine acts as a generator in the city. On the motorway, it drives. You won’t hear it. The cabin is well-insulated. A distant hum. Nothing more.
Cornering? Terrible. Body roll everywhere. But the ride quality? Best for UK roads. Chinese rivals can’t match it. Neither can some European ones.
The Germans
Want fun? Look elsewhere.
But if you have company car rules and family duties? The BMW X3 fits.
Handling is pure BMW. Weighty steering. Connected feel. You sacrifice comfort for dynamics. Firm suspension. Passengers complain. You don’t care.
Efficient Dynamics works. Predicted 49 miles? We got 53. When the gas engine kicked in, it was active. We still hit 40mpg though. Better than expected.
Volkswagen has evolved.
The old 1.4T systems were just gas engines with an electric starter. The new e-Hybrid? Balanced. 26kWH pack. Usable 19.7.
Power? The Tayron gets 201 bhp. The Audi Q3 gets 268. You don’t need the power. You need the efficiency.
The 201 bhp Tayron feels fast enough in town. It coastsmiles further. The adaptive dampers on the R-Line Edition? Turn them down. It settles. It flows. Between the firm BMW and the soft MG. Just right.
The Verdict
Bedford streets. Five finalists.
We killed 11 others. Too inefficient. Too loud. Boring.
A Chery almost made the cut. Good data. Bad soul?
The Range Rover Sport costs £90k. Silent. Smooth. But that gas mileage kills the party.
The BMW is the driver’s car. But where’s the inline-six soul? Just a whiny four.
VW improved. The MG improved. Both offer great efficiency regardless of the battery state.
Which one is the best PHEV today?
That depends. On your bank balance. On how much you value silence versus steering feedback. On whether you care that the Tayron lost its third row.
We don’t know. Maybe the answer isn’t one car.
