Suzuki e Vitara SUV (2025 - ) Electric review

Suzuki will offer the e Vitara in a five-strong model range made up of a combination of two battery sizes, two choices of how many wheels are driven, and two specifications. The cheapest version will ostensibly be just under £30,000 and the priciest ducking well below £40,000. Until the end of 2025 Suzuki will be doing its own £3,750 grant reductions and it will assess this grant on an ongoing quarter-by-quarter basis. This makes the e Vitara good value, especially considering the generous standard specifications of entry-level Motion and top-grade Ultra cars. Beyond that it’s the usual story that if you can charge it at home and on cheap off-peak electricity you’ll save a bundle in running costs, while company car drivers with an eye on their Benefit In Kind tax bill can still save over a hybrid or conventionally powered car.

It’s too early to say whether customer cars will be reliable, but Suzukis historically are trustworthy machines so we’d expect the same of the e Vitara. We’d take further reassurance for the fact it’s built in partnership with Toyota and both brands have a solid reputation for dependable engineering, not to mention there’s less to go wrong with electric cars anyway. Like Toyota, Suzuki will extend the standard three-year warranty to up to 10 years if you commit to having it serviced at authorised dealers, which sounds a reasonable quid pro quo.

The lower Motion trim comes with dual-sensor brake support, lane keep assist and lane departure prevention, traffic sign recognition, and genuinely useful blind spot warnings. There’s also rear cross-traffic alerts, a rear-view camera and all-round parking sensors as standard too. All stepping up to Ultra spec does is add adaptive high-beam headlights and a 360-degree camera system, so that’s democratising safety – bravo, Suzuki. We also like the fact Suzuki has stuck with physical controls so you can operate basic functions like heating and ventilation with your eyes on the road rather than stabbing away at a big screen as many rivals force you to do.

The Suzuki e Vitara is on the soft and wallowy side but that’s fine for the type of use it will get. Bar some excess noise from wind and rougher surfaces, it’s largely as refined as any electric car. We’d sound a note of caution about the ride comfort, though. On smooth roads it’s not bad, but if the lane becomes bumpy it seems to struggle with lumps in the surface which can make it feel bouncy and ill-resolved. Elsewhere, it is impressively spacious inside for what presents as an otherwise compact vehicle, with lots of space in the back and a sliding rear bench so you can free up more capacity if needed, though that obviously comes at the expense of legroom. That flexibility will be a bonus for family users, ditto the long rear doors that will make lifting kids into childseats a cinch.

We like Suzuki’s simple two-step approach to trim levels, the standard Motion version including navigation, a range improving heat pump, the sliding/reclining rear seats, all the safety systems, parking sensors, reversing camera and (on models with the bigger battery) heating for the steering wheel and front seats. The fancier Ultra spec adds power adjustment for the seats and a snazzier two-tone interior with tan inserts if you go for the green or silver paint options. Which is welcome, given without it the interior is a little sombre and cheap looking in the standard all-black. In terms of exterior paint anything but white is a cost option. Lovers of the giant screens seen in many rivals may consider the smaller one set into the e Vitara’s dash a little on the trad side but we actually preferred it for that and the physical switches beneath, the menus and systems powering it and the digital instruments seemingly logical and easy to use.

The e Vitara is available in three battery and motor combinations, none liable blow your socks off in raw performance terms but responsive enough at the speeds that matter in the real world. Take your pick from the smaller battery with the single motor or the bigger one with the option of front- or all-wheel drive. Big battery and single motor is the best combination for range, which is a claimed 264 miles by official stats. We drove this and the ALLGRIP-e version, the latter repurposing Suzuki’s traditional branding for the all-wheel drive models that have always been popular with drivers who need to get about in all weathers. The extra weight of the ALLGRIP-e actually helps settle the car and make it feel a bit more composed in the corners, and it gets off the line a lot quicker as well. You lose a bit of range in the process, so prioritise accordingly. Regenerative braking where you can put energy back into the battery when slowing down can be controlled by a button by the gear selector and from three levels buried in the menus, though even the hardest of these won’t bring the car to a complete halt for the ‘one-pedal driving’ many EV owners appreciate.