Mitsubishi ASX vs Volvo XC90

What's the difference?

The Mitsubishi ASX ES Street can more than handle being an urban dweller. The Street style pack makes this model stand out and the cabin is practical enough that it’s a good alternative for smaller families in the city. I get why the ASX is popular and I like the basic and traditional nature of this model on most fronts but not for the safety and tech. Not in this day and age against all of the well-equipped rivals it faces.

The XC90 Recharge makes a lot of sense for a family with a couple of kids, who live and spend most of their time in the city and surrounding suburbs.

You’ll need access to a power point for charging and you’ll have to do it regularly to get the best out of this SUV, but in return you’ll get effortless and efficient driving, along with the practicality and prestige which comes with any XC90. 

The ES Street doesn’t change the ASX fundamentals but it is styled differently and the Street package adds a black front spoiler and tailgate protector with red accents, black door handles, stainless steel door scuff plates, and decals across the side panels and rear. 

The interior sees almost no changes from the ES grade but the traditional plastic gear shifter and steering wheel are swapped out for an aluminium and leather-trimmed gear shifter and leather-wrapped steering wheel, which is a nice upgrade.

The dashboard is headlined by the tried and true (and old) 8.0-inch touchscreen multimedia system but this is a vehicle that likes tradition.

You have lots of physical buttons, dials and even a handbrake. There’s no push-button starter or digital instrument panel. If you want to move or change something, it’s going to be manual adjustment. It’s basic but there is something charming about that.

Cars are like dogs in that a year for them ages them more than one for us. So, this current-generation XC90 which came out in 2015 is getting on in age. Still, the XC90 is a design lesson in how to defy the aging process because the styling even now it appears modern and beautiful. It’s also big, tough, and prestigious looking which is how the flagship SUV in a premium brand should be.

The Thunder Grey paint my test car wore (see the images) is an optional hue, and it suited the battleship size and personality of the XC90. The enormous 22-inch five -spoke Black Diamond Cut alloy wheels were standard and filled up those giant arches nicely.

Maybe it’s the minimalist styling which has kept the XC90 looking cutting edge, because even the interior looks like the inside of a very expensive psychiatrist’s office with those leather seats and the brushed aluminium trim.

The vertical display is still impressive even in 2021, and while fully digital instrument clusters are in everything these days the XC90’s has a prestigious look and matches the rest of the cabin in its colours and fonts.

As for the XC90’s dimensions, it’s 4953mm long, 2008mm wide with the mirrors folded and 1776mm tall to the top of its shark fin antenna.

The size of the cabin is the most practical aspect of it and it is spacious for the class. Both rows enjoy decent head- and legroom and it's fairly easy to get in and out of from the front row but the back row has narrow door apertures.

The cloth seat upholstery on the seats looks nice but fatigue can set in early on a long trip due to a lack of lumbar support for the front and a lack of heavy padding overall.

The individual storage up front is great for the class with a deep middle console and glove box, two big cupholders, as well as a large drink bottle holder in each door. There is also a storage tray in front of the gear shifter for smaller items like a phone or sunnies.

Storage is minimal in the rear with two cupholders in a fold-down armrest and one single map pocket... and that's it for amenities in general. There's no directional air vents or USB ports in the back.

However, there is plenty of room for two car seats, if you had a couple of kids in tow.

Technology feels and looks outdated with the only charging options being two USB-A ports and two 12-volt sockets up front. It would be nice to see faster USB-C ports and a charging pad for the price.

The 8.0-inch touchscreen multimedia system hasn’t changed. It’s simple to look at and operate. It can catch the light, which makes it hard to see at times while on the go but is otherwise responsive.

It’s easy to connect to the wired Apple CarPlay and Bluetooth but the phone call quality was hit and miss. Sometimes it sounded tinny and sometimes it crackled.

Rounding out the cabin, the boot offers good capacity for the class at 393L and you can bump it up to 1193L if you fold the rear row. The boot aperture is wide and the level loading space means it’s super easy to fit larger items in.

The rear row also has a 60/40 split and there’s a space-saver spare tyre underneath the floor. While the ES Street doesn’t get a powered tailgate, the lid isn’t heavy to operate.

Clever interior packaging means the XC90 Recharge is more practical than many large SUVs. There are flashes of utilitarian brilliance everywhere from the children’s booster seat which pops out of the centre of the second row (see the images) to the way the XC90 can crouch down like an elephant to make it easier to load stuff into the boot.

The XC90 Recharge is a seven-seater, and like all SUVs with third rows those seats in the very back only offer enough room for kids. The second row is spacious even for me at 191cm tall with plenty of leg- and headroom. Up front as you’d expect has good head-, elbow- and shoulder room.

Cabin storage is good with two cup holders in each row (the third also has containers under the armrests) and there are large door pockets, a decent sized centre console box and a net pocket in the front passenger footwell.

The cargo capacity with all seats being used is 291 litres and with the third row folded flat you’ll have 651 litres of boot space.

Storage for the charging cable could be better. The cable comes in a stylish canvas bag that sits in the boot, but other plug-in hybrids I’ve driven do a better job of providing a storage box for the cable that’s out of the way of your regular cargo.  

The gesture control tailgate works with a foot swish under the rear of the car and the proximity key means you can lock and unlock the vehicle by touching the door handle.

The cargo area is filled with hooks for bags and a lift-up divider to hold items in place.

Four-zone climate control, four USB ports (two in the front and two in the second row) dark tinted rear windows and sun blinds top off what is a very practical, family SUV.

My family is small – there’s just three of us – and so the XC90 was more than what we needed. That said, we found a way to fill it with holiday gear, shopping, even a mini trampoline.

The XC90 Recharge lists for $114,990 making it the most expensive grade in the XC90 range.

Still, the value is excellent considering the number of features which come standard.

The 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster standard, so is the nine-inch vertical centre display for media and climate control, there’s also sat nav, a Bowers and Wilkins 19-speaker stereo, wireless phone-charging, four-zone climate control, power-adjustable front seats, proximity key with auto tailgate and LED headlights.

My test car was fitted with options such as the Nappa Leather perforated and ventilated seats in Charcoal ($2950), the Climate pack which adds heated rear seats and a heated steering wheel ($600), power folding headrests in the rear ($275) and Thunder Grey metallic paint ($1900).

Even at a grand total (before on-road costs) of $120,715 I think this is still good value.

The ES has a 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine that produces 110kW of power and 197Nm of torque.

That's plenty enough for urban driving but don’t expect any feeling of zippiness.

The ES Street is a front-wheel drive and has a continuously variable transmission (CVT) but you can option a manual transmission on the base GS grade, if that’s your vibe.

The XC90 Recharge (Volvo calls it this, so for simplicity let's do it, too) is an all-wheel drive SUV with a 2.0-litre four-cylinder supercharged and turbo-charged engine, producing 246kW and 440Nm, plus an electric motor which adds 65kW and 240Nm.

Shifting gears is an eight-speed automatic and acceleration is rapid at 5.5 seconds for the 0-100km/h sprint.

All XC90s have a 2400kg braked towing capacity.

The 11.6kWh lithium ion battery is located under the floor in a tunnel which runs down the centre of the car covered by the centre console and hump in the footwell of the second row.

If you didn’t realise, this is the type of hybrid you need to plug into a power source to charge the batteries. A power point is fine but a wall unit is faster.  If you don’t plug in, the battery will only get tiny whiff of charge from the regenerative braking and that won’t be enough to put a tiny dent in your fuel consumption.

The official combined cycle fuel consumption figure is a low 7.6/100km and my real-world use came out at 9.1L after a fair mix of urban and open-road driving. While not super surprised with the outcome, I was hoping for better efficiency.

Based on the official combined fuel cycle and 63L fuel tank, expect a theoretical driving range of up 829km – which is great for such a small SUV.

Volvo says that after a combination of urban and open roads the XC 90 Recharge should use 2.1L/100km. That’s incredible - we’re talking about a five-metre long, 2.2-tonne, seven-seat SUV here.

In my testing the fuel economy varied greatly depending on how and where I drove the XC90.

There was a week where I only drove up to 15km a day doing the day care drop-offs, the shopping, popping into work in the CBD, but all within 10km of my home. With 35km of electric range I found that I only had to charge the XC90 every second day to keep it topped up to full and, according to the trip computer, after 55km of travel I was using 1.9L/100km.

I recharged using the outdoor power point in my driveway and using this method would take just less than five hours to fully charge the battery from empty. A wall unit or fast charger will top the battery up much quicker.

The charging cable is long at more than 3m, and the flap on the XC90 is located on the front left wheel guard.

If you don’t have a way of charging the XC90 regularly then fuel consumption will go up, obviously.

This happened when our family took a break down the coast and the holiday house we stayed at didn’t have a power point within reach. So, while we had been charging the car regularly in the week beforehand with a few long trips thrown in on motorways, for the four days we were away I didn’t plug it in at all.

After 598.4km I filled it back to full at the petrol pump with 46.13 litres of premium unleaded. That comes to 7.7L/100km, which is still great fuel economy given that the last 200km would have been without charging.

The lesson is the XC90 Recharge is most fuel efficient on short suburban and city trips with daily or every second-day charging.  

A larger capacity battery would add more range and make this plug-in hybrid SUV better suited to people who live further out of the city and do more motorway miles.

The ES Street delivers adequate power to make it feel within the realm of fun in the city but it starts to feel lacklustre once you hit the open road. Put your foot down and the engine whines pitifully but you never worry about not getting there - it just likes to complain.

The suspension is on the right side of firm to get road feedback but not be bothered by it. You will feel bumps but not wince when you go over them. 

However, the ASX feels very light when you have heavy winds and the car moves around a lot at higher speeds, which I found to be unnerving at times.

Surprisingly, the ASX offers a pretty refined cabin experience in terms of noise. There is a constant low hum from the engine but wind and road noise aren't too bad and you can easily chat and listen to music without feeling like your senses are battered at the end of a trip. 

The ES Street is a fairly comfortable cruiser in tight city streets with responsive steering and a small footprint. This makes it easy to park and while the reversing camera isn’t the best quality, you know where this car starts and ends, so it’s not a big deal.

We put more than 700km on the clock of the XC90 Recharge during the three weeks it stayed with my family, covering a lot of motorway miles, country roads and a stack of urban usage, too.

Now without sounding like one of the haters who hated on me the last time I test-drove a Volvo hybrid, you will need to charge the XC90 Recharge all the time if you want to get not only the best fuel economy, but also the best performance from the SUV, too.

There’s the extra oomph from the motor, when you have enough charge in the ‘tank’ but also the serene and smooth pleasure of driving in electric mode on city and urban trips.

That tranquil electric driving experience feels kind of at odds with a large SUV at first, but having now tested a few big family plug-in hybrids and EVs I can tell you it’s a more enjoyable one.

Movement is not only smooth, but the electric grunt provides a feeling of control with an instant response which I found reassuring in traffic and at intersections.

The transition from electric motor to petrol engine is almost seamless. Volvo and Toyota are only a couple of the few brands which seemed to have achieved this.

The XC90 is large and that presented a challenge when trying to pilot it into my narrow driveaway and in car parks, but light, accurate steering and excellent visibility with large windows and cameras galore helped there.

The auto parking feature works well even on the higgledy-piggledy streets in my neighbourhood.

Topping off an effortless driving experience is air suspension which provides a cushioned and composed ride, with great body control all while wearing those 22-inch wheels and low-profile rubber.

Volvo has for decades been a pioneer of safety systems to such an extreme that people used to make fun of the brand for being overly cautious. Well, take it from this helicopter parent: there’s no such thing as being overly cautious! Besides, these days all car brands are striving to offer advanced safety systems which the XC90 has had for years. Yep, safety is cool now. Which makes Volvo the Kanye of car brands.

Coming standard on the XC90 Recharge is AEB which works at city speeds to brake for pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles and even large animals.

There’s also lane keeping assistance, blind spot warning, cross traffic alert with braking (front and rear).

Steering support provides assistance during at evasive manoeuvre at speeds between 50 and 100km/h.

Curtain airbags cover all three rows and for child seats there are two ISOFIX mounts and three top tether anchor points in the second row. Note, there are no mounts or points for child seats in the third row.

A space-saver spare is under the boot floor.

The XC90 was given the maximum five-star ANCAP rating when it tested in 2015.  

The ASX comes with a five-year/100,000km warranty, which can be extended to 10 years/200,000km, provided the vehicle is exclusively serviced by Mitsubishi dealers and on schedule. It's a warranty that is hard to beat, although MG just announced a 10-year/250,000km warranty and that's not conditional on where it is serviced.

The ASX also comes with 10 years of capped-priced servicing and the average cost is $502 per service.

Servicing intervals are reasonable at every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever occurs first.

The XC90 is covered by a five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty. Two service plans are offered: three years for $1500 and five years for $2500.