Suzuki eVitara review: First electric SUV impresses with refinement but falls short on range

Suzuki’s first electric SUV delivers improved refinement, tidy handling and four-wheel drive, but its range and touchscreen disappoint

Suzuki eVitara review: Discover how Suzuki’s first electric SUV performs on the road, with a look at its range, handling, interior and key drawbacks.

xxx CAR MODEL NAME xxxx
Rating	★★★☆☆
Price	from €38,490 - €44,050 as tested
Power	Twin motor EV layout allows for 4WD with 181bhp
Range	Claimed to be 395km, but that’s a stretch
The Spec	Thoroughly kitted out and a touch sophisticated overall
Verdict	Competent first EV effort, but it feels like it’s a generation behind the opposition

SOPHISTICATION is not generally a word you’d associate with Suzuki. Certainly, you could throw words like practical, hardy, bombproof, economical, and value at the brand and they would stick comfortably. But sophistication, no.

Well, not until now. The company has always had a name for making workmanlike cars that sell to a broad range of customers seeking reliability, foremost, and value, secondly. Throughout its long life, the Swift model has been an exemplar of this; hugely popular, mildly stylish, value for money and ridiculously reliable.

There’s been others too: The Celerio, the Alto, the Bolero, the Swace. There have been small 4x4s as well, including possibly the worst good off roader ever, the Samurai, which would go anywhere, but hated roads. There’s been the Jimny, which is sort of an acquired taste and SX4, which was a co-production with Fiat.

And then there was Vitara, which has had an exceedingly long and profitable life. First seen in 1988 and across five generations since. Originally a small but very capable 4x4, it gestated into a bigger beast with the advent of the Grand Vitara and, all in all, it has been a fantastic servant for Suzuki in many markets and a majority of people who bought one.

The advent of EV motoring has presented most manufacturers with a severe conundrum, the biggest of which, if you’re not a major player, has been sourcing batteries and motors capable of doing the job. Even for some of the biggest players — Ford, most notably — this has proved difficult to crack.

But Suzuki took a different approach — along with the likes of Subaru; they got on board with Toyota and that’s been critical. For Subaru, a technical tie-in with Toyota on the development of the bZ4X saw them making the Solterra.

Suzuki, on the other hand, have had a longer relationship with their bigger Japanese cohort, going back to the Swace (which was a rebadged Corolla) and the Across (which was never seen here, but was a rebadged RAV4).

So, when it came to creating an EV version of the Vitara, Toyota were once again involved, although this time Suzuki did most of the heavy lifting and Toyota took the resulting product and turned it into the Urban Cruiser, which won’t be sold here.

Suzuki eVitara review: Discover how Suzuki’s first electric SUV performs on the road, with a look at its range, handling, interior and key drawbacks.

But it is the Vitara, or the eVitara, as it’s EV is called, which we test this week and it is possibly notable as being one of the most, yes, sophisticated Suzukis we’ve ever seen. In terms of its looks, the interior decor and, most importantly, the way it goes, it is a step into the beyond for the usually modest marque.

As things stand, the eVitara will be something of a trendsetter for Suzuki, which plans to have a total refinement of four EVs available by 2030, but this one goes into a fairly crowded crossover EV marketplace, competing against such as the Skoda Elroq, the Ford Puma, and the Kia EV3.

The look, understandably, is not unlike the regular Vitara, but it has been chunked up a bit what with pretty common design touches like the beefy rear shoulders, the chiselly front end, new light clusters (front and rear), squared off front wings and accentuated faux air vents.

Both sides of the car are heavily scalloped and there is a lot of black cladding going on around the wings. But the overall effect is quite attractive, but a lot depends on the colour scheme you choose and black is certainly to be avoided.

On the inside there appears to be a lot of leather trimming, but it’s false, of course, but not unattractive. The same could not be said of the equally fake leather upholstery, which really does look phony and cheap.

Overall though, it does exhale an air of refinement and the characteristic tinniness of older Suzukis has been banished. The infotainment and instrumentation screens utilise new software, but somehow the system overall is slow witted and a touch frustrating, to be honest.

There’s a smattering of physical buttons for the climate control, which are welcome, but when it comes to adjusting the settings such as the speed limit warning and the hateful lane departure system, you seem to have to fiddle around for an unnecessarily long time before getting the required result.

Suzuki eVitara review: Discover how Suzuki’s first electric SUV performs on the road, with a look at its range, handling, interior and key drawbacks.

Rear passenger space is a little tight, albeit abetted by the fact that the rear seat is moveable fore/aft and the boot is small by segment standards and at its smallest will only accommodate 238 litres of cargo and at its biggest, just 306 litres.

In other markets there appears to be a choice of two battery sizes, although as far as I can see, only the big one is offered here. That means the tester — the Allgrip-e — gets a second motor, some 181 bhp, and four-wheel drive. That results in a range of — claimed — 395 km, but only if you’ve access to a supercharger. My elderly old charging lag would only get it up to 362km, and you’d have to say that by modern standards, that’s only average.

In Ultra spec — as was the tester — you can choose between front-wheel and all-wheel drive, and it was the latter we drove. And guess what? It turned out to be quite a sophisticated little runner.

Handling is very tidy, with no undue understeer; the handling is neat and zippy too, although the steering does lack a little feel. Is it an exciting thing to drive? Well, no, but it is very surefooted, and the ride is confident when you’re on pancake motorway surfaces, with little body roll.

HEAD out into the wilds a little and things do get a little unsettled and on rough surfaces — that’s most of them in this country — you’ll find the Vitara hitting the bump stops a little too regularly. One thing is very notable, however, and that is noise suppression: Tyre and wind are kept to a minimum and, largely, out of the cabin.

This is supposed to be a calm and comfortable car, so you’re not going to be breaking any records in it. Even so — and considering there’s a single-speed auto box is use, the 0-100 km/h time is a brisk 7.4 seconds and top speed 150 km/h.

Overall, Suzuki largely fulfilled the brief here in what is their first EV contender. It’s not brilliant across all parameters, but it’s pretty damn good in most of them and adds that little sprinkle of classiness and — dare I say it — chic to what you might have expected to be a more workmanlike beast.

Although pace is not an issue, efficiency is, and on that front, the Vitara falls a tad short as it does not yet have the range that people are coming to expect these days.

Sure, this is the company’s first venture into the EV marketplace and, as such, it’s a solid effort. But the average range and the sloppy touchscreen leave it behind the eight ball somewhat.