If you do not have access to charging at home then a PHEV is not the right option for you. Having a fully charged battery for your commute is the reason you buy a PHEV.
Agreed. I didn't bother watching any further as, at least in my mind, why pay a premium for a feature that you never use and then try and do a review about it
But it was used (via public outlets on a regular basis) - not to mention the other benefits of the hybrid system, which does indeed work if you don’t have home charging
With the battery drained it gets about the same gas mileage as the non-PHEV Outlander but makes WAY more power and does not have a cvt (it has a 1-speed auto instead). The only problem I have is the price. It’s so much more expensive than its non-PHEV sibling.
I have an Exceed Tourer PHEV last February in Sydney and I love it. Luxurious 7 seaters ride with a very fuel efficient usage. I used it 80% of the time on EV mode and charge it every other night. My average fuel consumption is 1.6L/100km😮
I think it's a pretty fair review, with the caveats about the inability of the reviewer to charge at home declared up front. Mitsubishi did not design this car to be a super economical hybrid, but a very sophisticated, powerful, and flexible drive-train with decent mild off-road ability (and yes, I've taken mine more places than the advertisements do and clearances are about the only thing limiting its ability - traction and low speed torque are extraordinary). My use case is working from home and being able to charge with roof-top solar, and I rarely do more than 60km on an average weekday. The only time I use fuel is for longer drives or the monthly camping/road-trips (800-900km per tank/charge is not out of the question) - or for a bit of fun in Tarmac mode. Being able to pick and choose when to top up (petrol price cycles and all that) is great, and I rarely see a petrol pump more than once every 2 months. I'm glad the cornering performance was mentioned (many reviewers miss this bit) with the S-AWC - it's NO gimmick for sure, and you can find yourself getting a bit cocky at times and need to restrain yourself to prevent the passengers screaming 😆 - it corners like no heavy SUV has any right to. Other great practical features worth mentioning on the Aspire are the 240v AC power on hand (I have an induction hob and pod-coffee machine in the back of mine), and the adaptive high beams that selectively dip the appropriate lights for oncoming traffic and even for highly reflective signs. The 360 camera is great for both parking and offroad, and the HUD is really cool as well. I've been nothing but thrilled with mine - puts a smile on my face with every drive, is hugely practical for my purposes (with room to sleep in the back), and continues to impress.
@@kdegraa I don't venture too far and I take a tyre repair/plug kit and a good compressor. In 40 years of driving I have had about 2 flats, and they were from small punctures. I'm not going to take the car places liable to damage the sidewalls (ie rocks), I'm talking sandy/muddy tracks etc.
@@adampoll4977 at Christmas/New Years of 2019/2020 I busted a wheel on my car on a back road. There was no mobile service in the area. The rim was stuffed. Our car had a space saver spare tyre. We changed it over and thankfully drove off. If we had not had a spare tyre at the very least we would have had a long wait for someone to help us and then to have the car towed to the nearest town and then a long stay in this town till the shops opened again in the new year. Maybe this sort of incident could have cost us close to $2000 all up. Thankfully it cost us around 15 minutes of time and a slow drive home. If we buy a new car I'm going to make sure it either comes with a spare tyre or one can be bought and safely stored for those trips off the main road. From what I've seen the Outlander PHEV is a competent off road vehicle. It is kind of marketed as such too by Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi should work out a way for a spare tyre to be safely transported with this vehicle when needed. A spare tyre would not be needed around town but when travelling off the main roads it is a real risk not having a spare tyre.
PHEV was meant ideally to be charge at home everyday or depending on how you daily drive. And if you didn't practice that then this long term review does not show the real efficiency of this PHEV SUV.
We did practice it from time to time, we quoted the electric range on a full charge in a variety of situations, and we provided the efficiency when you have a dead battery. That's the information you need.
@@JP-my6bz it just turns into a series hybrid when the battery is low, the battery is never truly "dead". That's the point that the engine will remain on for most driving scenarios. They just say "dead" for ease of communication.
I’m still waiting for a review of a plug in hybrid where it’s charged every day at home, personally I have done between 25 and 50 kilometres i per day for the last 3 days so I would have used no petrol for these 3 days.
One litre per 100kms? Are you saying you get 5000kms per fill up? That's outrageous, and I hope it's true! I ordered mine about 6 weeks ago, so looking forward to getting it.
@@jw6968we have a outlander phev 2024 and we love it. I’m at 94% EV mode I do forget to charge it couple times a week but it surprisingly still has juice average battery is around 95-105 km electric in perfect summer weather. Do expect 25% loss ev range in winters
interesting review. we have an MY19 PHEV Exceed which we acquired 1 yr old in 2020 for $43k. Our lifetime fuel consumption average is 4 litres/100km, and it does about 7 on trips where we can't charge. The MY19 model has a smaller battery than the one reviewed so our "EV" distance is more like 40kms (or 50km doing the optimal test). The engine is also smaller, so you do notice it working harder on steep hills. The EV traction system is brilliant. Overall it is a very easy car for town and highway cruising. I have never noted any issues with raised in the review on ride. We have the benefit of charging at home most days from solar panels, which is a key to overall economy. I found it interesting the reviewer was still mostly positive even not exploiting the plug-in capability.
Interesting review of the car without fully utilising the EV features. If the EV features were used, the L/km would go down drastically. Essentially a review of the vehicle operating as a hybrid without the battery capacity
Your the first review that didn’t have some sort of baging of a nice car, so I bought one, it should be my forever car as I am 76 and ten years warranty should see me out. Thank you for your review.
Your comment made me unexpectedly sad. What a strange notion to buy a car and think that it is going to be the last you ever buy. (Not faulting your logic at all, just saying that it struck me as sad) I hope you really enjoy the car mate and that you defy that warranty.
Pretty weird to have someone who wasn’t able to plug in their PHEV at home do a long term review of a PHEV. The clue is in the name, plug-in hybrid. I don’t think anyone without a powerpoint in their carport/garage is buying this car, and if they are, they’re getting a power point put in
Given you had the "worst case scenario" for PHEV ownership and lack of easy charging, 6.9L/100km in mixed driving is not bad for a big square family SUV. . It's what we average out a 2L 4cyl hatchback with 6 speed manual. Mind you the hatch does near 5.0L/100km on the highway, but is also not a 7 seater and/or have a near 500L boot. For a long term test, with no ability to recharge at home, you should have included detailed info about fuel efficiency when the car is in self charging mode. Real world owners who can charge up when required report fuel use around/under 4.5L/100km. Some would be even better than that if almost exclusively on electric driving.
My lifetime fuel economy in this car is under 1.5l/100km after 2300kms. It would be less but I’ve done a few little road trips here and there. Great cars.
Dude, respectfully, putting adaptive dampeners on this would significantly increase the price on what is already and expensive vehicle. On that price versus getting a Tesla or a Kia EV6 base model, both of those cars are different propositions, the Outlander has 7 seats(as crappy as those last 2 seats are and beleive me they are the worst). The other big difference is the jump to full electric, those long journeys you did would need alot more precision planning with those EV's plus you wouldnt get as much out out a single charge vs single tank of fuel. Thirdly, the base model of both those EV's isnt as nice as the Outlander in the Apire trim, plus, no one really likes the base model, even for something that bloody expensive.
When you see the price difference between the Top line PHEV as against the top line PETROL, there is a gap of some $18,000.00. It would take years to recoup the cost saving in fuel usage. Unless you prefer the PHEV setup, I fail to see what the advantage is with PHEV when buying simply to save on fuel cost understanding the greater upfront purchase price.
Same argument here. If we only do 6000kms per year, it would take us nearly 10 years to just break even with that kinda surplus upfront cost. The new Ford Everest (
You make a good point. As you make it are you assuming fuel cost will stay the same? To me numerous global conflicts indicate fuel costs will start to go up in the future.
@@rustykilt Yes I agree. The point I am making though is that gasoline may rise because crude oil prices may spike. I was looking at getting a PHEV because I already have a solar panel set up that should allow me to charge at no added expense.
@@peterbrown770 I have no problem with people choosing PHEV or EV or whatever suits their needs. It should always be a personal decision. DIESEL suits me for what i need and my budget, but PHEV is very popular as with HEV.
Interesting though to hear the "worst case scenario" for PHEV ownership. 6.9L/100km for a family SUV shaped like a brick isn't too bad. But if it's your own money and you can't charge easily, I think saving thousands to buy a normal ICE version would still save you more money overall.
@@Mububban23 You don't buy a PHEV to save money. In fact, technically you don't buy a car at all lol. In this case, the PHEV is like buying an R-line vs regular VW as a comparison or an N version instead of regular Hyundai. Better power train and performance. This just happens instead to also have lower fuel usage for the enviros with a greater potential for reducing carbon footprint compared to the petrol but only if used as it's designed.
@@argent10k that's right, The Outlander PHEV has 185kW of power, 450Nm of torque, that's R-Line territory. The EV and fuel efficiency part is just a bonus. Oh, not to mention the torque vectoring/4WD system.
This is one of the cars I am looking at to replace my 2000 Rav 4, in a 5 seat version. I probably do about 150 / 200 km's per week just driving local roads.
But if you are complaining about public charging infrastructure as you did at the beginning of the video, how can you recommend (despite being excellent cars) getting a Tesla Model 3/Y or Kia EV6? That would have exacerbated the charging problem! However with the Outlander PHEV, you can at least have the petrol engine to help charge (even if it is supremely inefficient at urban driving speeds).
That depends on how you look at it. Public charging with EVs can be suitable for people without home charging, as their longer range means you can top up once a week or fortnight.
@@chasingcars That's a fair point. I'm curious on your driving methodology over your long trips. I did read somewhere online that if you use 'volting' while driving, you can extend your driving range on EV mode. Simply put, you drive in EV mode until you get to a low SOC on the battery and then switch to charge mode while you are cruising at highway speed. Let the battery charge up to 80% and repeat. Because the engine is at it's best efficiency band during the highway cruise, you should get a big leg up in terms of fuel efficiency.
The video actually showed a higher highway fuel consumption than urban. I’ve never tested fuel consumption around town for obvious reasons but I get 6.7 at 100kmh without the battery level dropping. I’ve only driven 150km at a time so far. I think the key is keeping a bit more battery rather than letting it go to 0 on the meter. Regarding charging - a Tesla or pretty much any other EV will have a lot more fast charge options because the outlander uses the Chademo plug.
@@chasingcars as a tesla owner with an outlander PHEV arriving in the next 2 weeks.... neither would be viable if relying solely on public charging infrastructure where we are in central QLD. maybe in the countries major cities, but that's it and even then it's questionable and inconvenient. I couldn't recommend the tesla to anybody that cannot charge at home. The outlander on the other hand, there's an argument there if you're willing to pay extra for the better powertrain and convenience of V2L and 240V outlets for camping trips etc.
@@davidroberts5199 At the same time though, the PHEV can still trickle charge from 0-100% at home in 6-8 hours on a standard single phase 240v wall socket with the provided granny charger. Can't do that on a BEV. You'd need to spring for a commando plug for higher amperage charging or a wallbox.
Mitsubishi PHEV vs a Nissan with its 'ePower'? You can't really compare the pair when it comes to it in my personal opinion. I do also agree the fact that if you don't have the ability to charging at home that any PHEV or even an EV for that matter would simply not be fit for the purpose. I will shortly be changing from a 2018 Hyundai i30 diesel into one of these as shown above - in Exceed grade as opposed to Aspire. I will also be getting such a vehicle via a Novated Lease arrangement for the 'incentives' that do currently exist while they exist. The best thing about this current Outlander is the best of both worlds exist. I wouldn't dare charge such vehicle using public fast charging (for obvious reasons regarding the battery health) and the fact that it still has a petrol engine with its 56 litre fuel tank definitely helps this cause. I personally wouldn't be towing anything bigger than a box trailer or small camper with a car like this but in my case, I won't be bothering with a towbar at all. I'll also be liking the fact that I won't have to worry about a DPF not getting enough running time for a 'burn off' cycle to occur - especially when only running around town and not on the highway/motorway...
ePower is a 'range extender' type hybrid. BMW pioneered these in the original i3 and pretty much came to the conclusion was "why not just add more battery?". There are a number of vids online showing why range extenders are terribad (specifically the law of thermodynamics). There are some efficiencies but it's nowhere near a standard hybrid like Toyota's.
The petrol engine in the outlander allows it to be super smooth in transition from electric to petrol , but the 2.4 4b12 is a little thirsty on its own. Maybe they can go for a 1.6 3 cylinder turbo engine, put in the necessary balancing shaft to eliminate the 3 cylinder shaking nature. Toyota and nissan are perfecting 3 cylinder engines , because it gives the benefit of inproved fuel economy while still delivering good power, toyota has the m15A in the yaris cross Nissan has the kr15DDT in the rogue. The odd thing is Mitsubishi was the first to bring back 3 cylinder engines amongst its Japanese rivals in the mirage, but Mitsubishi sat there and didnt do anything to innovate with it, while toyota and nissan perfected their 3 cylinder implementations.
Tesla Superchargers are over 99% reliable and well maintained. The ‘public charging network’ of non-Tesla chargers is far less reliable. Not much point to a PHEV if it isn’t charged at home, and used primarily for local commuting. No doubt a good car, but why go halfway and not get a full electric vehicle?
In Australia, regional charging isn't great (but improving hopefully) - even Tesla superchargers. 40C+ summer under no shade + cabin aircon usage + family in the car on a long road trip isn't viable. Battery charge speed is reduced due to ambient heat and ac usage so you are stopped to charge a lot longer. Of course this assumes the charger works in the first place.
I live in a regional City with a bank of Tesla superchargers minutes away, and while I charge at home they aren’t needed. There’s an increasing number of high speed chargers being installed in smaller regional towns. East Coast Australia travel no problem at all. Sunshade installation inside the glass roof on my car makes it entirely okay in hot weather. I wish Tesla had put them there, but they weren’t hugely expensive and I installed with no difficulty. But we all choose the car we need or want. I’m happy with mine.
@@gregturner_awod I agree generally if you don't have to travel the interior. I personally prefer at the time being not to have to worry that the charging destination I'm heading to is not a) in use (and this will largely become an increasing problem even as it improves) or b) not in service/broken.
It’s no problem to travel the interior if route is chosen properly. Likewise if there’s a power point anywhere and staying overnight a full charge is entirely possible with plenty of range in my car. I carry charging equipment that allows connection in many places.
@@gregturner_awod And that is the problem right there. IF route is chosen but it doesn't alleviate the issue of chargers not working or available. Hence the PHEV is a good bridger at this stage. If I was to get a second car, it'd be a BEV but not with the current state of infrastructure. I'm not willing to subject my family to the summer heat (been there done that with car breaking down) in the middle of nowhere.
Are you using the regenerative braking for the brake pedal to decelerate? If you are not using the flappy paddles or the "One Pedal" button to do your decelerating, then you shouldn't have an PHEV, or and EV. Also, what driving mode are you using? Do you have it set in NORMAL, or EV, or CHARGE or SAVE?? I think the key to increasing your range on a single charge would be to 1) Press the "One Pedal" driving button ( if you don't want to have to think about what you are doing ) or 2) Use the "-ve" flappy paddle on the left of the steering wheel for all your braking above 5 km/hr, and just use the brake pedal under 5 km/hr, then just hold the "+ve" flappy paddle for 3 seconds to set the regen braking level back to B0 every time you come to a stop. If you are not making full use of the regenerative braking, you will never achieve high electric only range results.
that's roughly 30 - 50km, , and depends on what year outlander you have , they increased the battery size 2022/23 from 13 to 20 kwh , , roughly a 50% increase ( all number approximate)
They are a good vehicle, but I fail to see the advantage of the PHEV in respect to an off-roader. Better to purchase an SUV, if you do little off road use.
Hello, having never driven this or any hybrid can you help me im curious say long highway driving, battery says nope, zilch, nothing, no charge, 0% (is that even feasible? theres always at least some charge? idk ) , did you experience ICE only? just how punchy is the engine ( ICE only ) for uphills & overtakes ?
98kW and 195Nm from just the engine. With a full load of people and luggage, you'd want to plan overtakes well in advance! But Mitsubishi's hybrid PHEV system can actually recharge its battery while driving, unlike the MG HS PHEV for example which must be plugged in to recharge. Yes your fuel economy will suffer a bit while feeding power into the battery, but if you were going to be doing some flat highway cruising, recharging when you're getting optimal fuel efficiency would minimise that effect. Driving a PHEV or an EV just requires a little more thought than ICE, which requires almost no thought, but spews poison every km you drive. So (literally) pick your poison
The car shows 0 EV range when the battery has about 20% left. At that point it enters hybrid mode where the engine cycles on/off to charge/discharge the battery around 2-3% over and over. At speeds over 70kmh the engine can also drive the front axle mechanically through the transaxle while harvesting excess power to top up the battery. That 20% buffer is there to allow you the full power output even when in hybrid mode. So if you need to overtake or climb a hill you always have way more power available than the petrol engine power. If you were to travel at excessive speed for a seriously long hill climb you could in theory run that buffer down to a point when the car will limit power but it’s very uncommon to see this situation. Towing a caravan up a very long hill might also case this behaviour. You can also choose to enter this hybrid on/off cycle when we ever you want, eg when you have half the battery remaining. This means you can plan ahead for extremely demanding terrain.
@@davidroberts5199 thanks for the many words, much appreciated. sounds like a complicated system but from what you types also seems a good way to go about it. Yeah was curious to know with this car, can you ever be caught short and lugging around dead battery weigh & motor ... sounds like a 99% no but with an * maaaaaaybe hahaa thanks again
Not plugged in daily, plugged in regularly as we have chargers next to our office. We tested the electric range in a broad variety of situations (quoted), tested the fuel economy on a dead battery (quoted), talked about how it performs on road trips (quoted)… quite an exaggeration to imply this was "pointless".
I don't think they 'gave up' on smaller EVs but rather smaller EVs in that size category were having issues getting 5 star ANCAP. In Japan they have a dinky little EV called the eK but that is not ever going to get a 5 star ANCAP here in Aust or other countries due to it's size.
Good review. Can you pl clarify if the ICE serves as a generator here to power the electric motors or is it also connected to the transaxle and powers the wheels directly in combination with motors? Thnx
Primarily the engine runs as a generator and provides power to the motors and/the battery pack. This is always the case below about 70kmh. Above about 70kmh, when road speed is sufficient a wet clutch in the front transaxle allows the engine to drive mechanically through a single speed reduction gear. During this operation any excess power is sent to the battery pack and the motors continue to be driven. If you put your foot down then the clutch will disengage, the engine will rev up to flood the electric drivetrain with power. So, yes there is a mechanical link which serves as an eco feature by cutting out some of the losses from the generator/battery/motor path under ideal conditions but primary drive and high power demand is through the EV drivetrain. If you were to drive at speeds above 145kmh then the road speed would be sufficient for the engine to be operating at peak power rpms and at those speeds maximum power for acceleration would be delivered though the mechanical link to the front wheels while the battery delivered power to the rear electric motor.
The engine will be forced on at about 140kmh. But there’s a good chance it’ll come on if you put your foot down at 100. Just bear in mind that the EV range drops the faster you go. You might get 70-80km range around town and 50-60 at 100 on the highway.
Nice Nissan rouge……opps I mean Mitsubishi outlander 😁badge engineering of the 2020s is a lot better then it was in the 1980’s for sure,the Nissan looks a little better imo but not by much cool review 💯
The PHEV technology in Outlander has been developed by Mitsubishi and not available to Nissan, the Outlander PHEV has been the world's first and highest selling PHEV SUV for over a decade.
That may be true however the most of the interior features and underpinnings are the same as the Nissan where’s the lie? 😁 it’s hard to believe that Mitsubishi sold more hybrids than Toyota has but the point was this thing shares most of its parts with the Nissan rouge who had the most sales and who did it first wasn’t my angle 💯
Nope, you can't call it a Nissan Rogue, the CMF-CD platform is co-developed again co-developed, Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi shared the cost of the development of the platform and they are all involved again involved in the development so no it's not badge engineering.
I'd give credence if you were referring to the petrol model. Nissan engine + Nissan CVT etc. The PHEV however is all Mitsubishi in respect to the powertrain and engine.
I can not see the value of any car over 35k , just can't, I don't by cars unless they fit this criteria, to much money is lost over 4 years. They are not like a housing asset.
Pretty normal for a big PHEV to have poor to average highway mileage over long distances. There’s no magic happening. It’s a 2 tonne car. Just a petrol engine vs a diesel engine. Around town is a different story as the PHEV can take advantage of regen and doesn’t need to waste fuel spinning the engine at idle. Plug the PHEV in and do your town driving on electric and you’ll use no fuel at all. I’ve just done 2300kms on 40l of petrol. Including about 700 miles of highway driving. Can you beat that in a diesel?
@@davidroberts5199 that's impressive numbers. And I'm aware that petrol and diesel around town is bad. I just think the outlander offering isn't the best on market. Any vehicle plugin, if you don't have solar panels at home it's not worth the purchase
@@davidroberts5199 This! I only fill up about once every 2 months (and filling a 54l tank with 91 petrol is WAYYY cheaper than a big tank with diesel) and usually only if I've done a couple of long road trips (get near 900km from a full tank/battery) - so I can choose to refill ONLY when it's a lower price. Charge at home during the day with solar (work from home) and running costs are amazingly good. Plus, the power and torque delivery is SOOOO much better than an ICE especially a diesel. Put it in Tarmac mode for good times ;)
@@vustatubeHaving shopped around in the segment before I bought the car I can state with certainty that this PHEV is the best in the market. For me and my use case. But even if you charge off coal at night you’re still far more efficient than an ICE around town. Plus no toxic fumes in your garage etc. Instant silent torque. Once you get used to an electric drivetrain there’s no going back. It’s just so much nicer
The opinion was stated and then justified based on personal experience and preference - you stop watching because you disagree with one statement? Hmm.
Does the PHEV have thermal battery management or is it going to be plagued with expedited degradation like gen1 PHEV? Over that 13000km did you average the 1.7l/100km Mitsubishi quote? Do you realise fast charging these 16kWh battery packs can reduce their longevity? Do you remember that when the gen1 PHEV was tested in the UK against its diesel sibling it was cheaper to run the diesel? Is the towing rate reduced compared to the petrol? PS. I owned the previous gen Outlander turbo diesel and towed our 1.8t ATM caravan thousands of kilometres and averaged 9.5l/100km at the pump. Not towing it averaged 6.3l. Do the maths and the electric drivetrain uses 21kWh/100km compared to 15 in the Tesla Y. The boot in the Tesla Y is significantly bigger and even at 50c/kWh public charging it will only cost 7.5c per km for every km driven. The PHEV will cost 10.5c on its electric journey then on your 8l/100km claim cost 16c per kilometre on its fossil fuel journey and has to carry that ICE engine the whole time. The straight ULP version of the Outlander will cost virtually no more to run and saves all that extra weight. Go EV or go ULP. PHEV is inefficent as an EV and less efficent zs a petrol car because of the weight burden of the second drivetrain in each scenario. Am I wrong?
The use case for the PHEV is very specific. It fits me perfectly. I run it as an EV using power from my rooftop solar for all my daily driving. For longer trips you still see good fuel consumption figures if you leave with a full battery. 6.7 l/100 is what I see running in hybrid mode. Knock a bit off that for the EV miles. My lifetime fuel consumption after 2500kms is 1.4 l/100km. I have zero interest in charging on road trips. One day maybe but for now having one big car that can be an EV most of the time and a quiet, smooth, powerful hybrid for road trips is perfect. If you do only highway driving then you can’t beat diesel. Only city driving then you can’t beat EV. If you do the right mix of both then you can’t beat the PHEV. A friend has a model Y and the Outlander boot is bigger. In general it’s a more practical car. I think Tesla fiddle their numbers by measuring to the roof or something. The Y is noisier and has a crashy suspension vs the outlander. You need to use the stupid touch screen for everything in the Tesla, even the AC. The outlander has physical buttons and dials for everything. These are my real world observations. I wouldn’t trade the outlander for a Y, no way. The petrol outlander gets good highway fuel consumption but around town it’s higher than the PHEV even if the PHEV isn’t charged. But the petrol car is gutless compared to the PHEV. As for cooling, yes the new gen outlander has an advanced cooling and management system using refrigerant pumped through the battery pack. So yeah on a few things I think you’re wrong. But there are people who absolutely shouldn’t buy a PHEV. You need to have the right use case and then they’re brilliant.
Also the towing limit is the same for the petrol car (with its CVT gearbox) 1600kg in Aus. And the battery pack is 20kwh not 16. I see power consumption at 17 with the AC off and 20 with it on. But I’ve seen it much higher and much lower depending on conditions. You should take one for a spin. They’re bloody great cars.
re: battery management - 2022+ PHEV thermal management is a massive upgrade from previous gen. Previous gen used prismatic cells with active fan cooling via the HVAC while new gen uses NMC ternery with liquid cooling. Software has also gone a long way since and Mitsubishi put an 8 year (160,000km?) warranty on their battery packs. Fast charging will degrade any lithium battery if used all the time however newer battery tech like LFP is less prone to it. It's recommended not to charge always to 100% anyway as you will otherwise lose the energy recouped from regen braking on a 100% battery. The whole idea of a PHEV (or rather it's design use case) is for people who can access regular home charging overnight and drive around 30-50km of daily commute while still wanting the ability to go on longer road trips without having to worry about regional charging infrastructure (in Australia, this is a real big problem). It's a pretty specific use case and if you deviate from it, you'll find there are marginally to considerably better options available to you. If you never travel more than the max seasonal range of a BEV, then that's the best for you. Personally, I'd rather not have to sit in 40C+ under no shade in Australia waiting for a battery to charge (which will slow down due to heat and aircon consumption while in the cabin) for a prolongued period during a road trip. Add a couple of young kids and the family in the car and yeah..... that becomes even less viable.
PHEV are well suited to those who regularly travel long distances in regional Australia. The charging infrastructure is not yet in place to support the growth we are seeing in full EVs. Try driving from Canberra down the coast to Batemans Bay in an EV and needing a charge. Not a lot of options down the coast or on the way and the route gets busy during holiday periods. Yet for day to day driving in Canberra, a 60 km range will will meet all your day to day driving needs. EVs like the Model Y etc are great for the cities and will one day be perfect for country driving but if you plan a trip now from Sydney to Melbourne be prepared to spend time waiting for a charger as EV numbers grow faster than supporting infrastructure
Of course you can. Is it a rule that you can only compare cars to vehicles that are the exactly the same price or cheaper? It is absolutely worth thinking about whether it's worth spending a few grand more on a pricier alternative, which can be better value.
