Our Fleet Test Drive: Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV – 3rd report

After more than 1800 miles in the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV it’s time to do a few sums to work out what it’s costing per mile.

Because the Outlander PHEV is a plug-in hybrid, you can’t work out a simple mpg figure to judge the car on. Instead you have to come down to cold hard cost per mile familiar to fleets around the country.

My sums show that my average electricity cost per mile (spread over the total mileage) is just 2.1p and over the same distance my petrol cost is 9.0p to give a total of 11.1p a mile. As a comparison, a diesel car paying £1.36 a litre would have to achieve about 55mpg to reach the same fuel-only mileage cost.

Now 55mpg may not sound impressive, but there are two things to remember. Firstly, the Outlander is a large four-wheel drive with plenty of room for five adults and their luggage. Secondly, this is an average over just two tanks of petrol. Over the second tank of fuel (where the majority of the driving was local) the cost per mile was exactly 10p a mile (or a diesel equivalent of 61mpg).

While it’s possible to get that kind of figure out of an eco-special saloon or hatch in the C or D sector, to run at 10p a mile in a big 4×4 that’s mainly doing urban driving – I’m impressed.