Styling
The Suzuki e Vitara is not ugly, but at the same time it's not particularly striking either. Avoid specifying it in Bluish Black Pearl because that hides all the contrast plastic body-cladding around the vehicle's lower portions and makes it look fairly anodyne. Some of the lighter colours and the five bitone options with a black roof are better, enhancing the angularity of the e Vitara's design.
Wheel choices are 18-inch items on the Motion and a set of 19s for the Ultra, while a nice flourish on the Suzuki is represented by the new three-point light signatures, visible both front and rear.
Interior
In terms of material finishing, the e Vitara is an improvement on its
Mk4 predecessor, but there are still one or two surfaces inside that leave much to be desired. Also, unless you specify either a green or a silver body in Ultra spec, the cabin is unremittingly black, which isn't massively appealing. The alternative is a passenger compartment with some tan synthetic-leather panels in it, which does at least lift the ambience somewhat.
Technology is provided by a 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster and a 10.1-inch central infotainment system, neither of which is particularly objectionable in terms of graphical representations and menu layouts.
However, despite the retention of a cluster of physical buttons for climate shortcuts, there's still way too much faffing about on the central touch-display involved with certain actions and ancillaries: it'll be 12 screen taps and more than 20 seconds of exasperated waiting to turn off both lane-keep assist and the speed-limit warning; and the heated seats are a needlessly complex five-press fiasco, which'll take five-seven seconds of your eyes being off the road because there's a completely unnecessary animation of spinning chairs you have to wait for to play out before you can switch the heaters on. There's acres of space on the shiny, scratch-susceptible piano-black transmission tunnel area where a couple of straightforward heated-seat switches could have easily lived to make this overcomplicated process far simpler.
Practicality
There's a useful trick on the Suzuki e Vitara as the rear seats can be slid backwards and forwards by up to 160mm, allowing you to tailor the crossover's interior to provide more passenger room or greater cargo capacity as required. Furthermore, the rear backrests are split in the most practical 40:20:40 division, while there are good storage spaces all around the cabin.
But once again, you find things that will irk you. The boot, for instance, measures just 244 litres with all five seats in use and the rear row slid all the way back; it drops to a meagre 238 litres in an Ultra model with the boot-mounted subwoofer for the Infinity premium sound system. Even if you drag the back bench all the way forward, you're only up to either 310 or 306 litres accordingly, and with the backrests folded down Suzuki claims a feeble 562 litres of space. Game efforts at the launch to show us three suitcases stuffed into the e Vitara's cargo bay only seemed to highlight how cramped its boot was, and most of its key rivals will have figures of 400 litres seats up and more than 1,000 litres rear seats down.
There's more than that, such as small bottle-holder-only rear-door pockets, no front boot on the e Vitara whatsoever, and the fact the rear armrest is actually the middle portion of the entire backrest folded down - so road noise from the rear wheelarches will be filtering into the cabin when the armrest is lowered - but we'll stop there for now.
Performance
We only drove the dual-motor Allgrip-e version of the e Vitara off-road, where it performed fine on a moderately tough (but not terrifyingly technical) course somewhere in the West Midlands, but it did also give us a few brief chances to explore its meatier 307Nm of torque and 183hp (on grass admittedly) - and it seems this flagship Suzuki does possess that desirable EV 'punch'.
The problem is, due to the cheaper pricing and the longer range, everyone is going to want the car we're testing here, with the bigger of two BYD-sourced batteries (49- and 61kWh usable) and a single front motor. Power isn't much less than on the Allgrip-e (174hp, and a useful 30hp up on the entry-level single-motor 49kWh e Vitara's reedy 144hp), but the torque is eye-catchingly low at 193Nm. A 0-62mph time of 8.7 seconds isn't too bad, and in truth on roads the e Vitara 61kWh long-range model does feel like it has just about enough oomph to get out of its own way. But it's not particularly zippy and brisk like a good EV should be, thanks to its 1.8-tonne kerb weight.
The regenerative braking is good, mind, with a single switch on the tunnel to switch it on and off. Nevertheless, if you want to increase or decrease the strength of the regen through three adjustable levels, it's once again a frustrating delve into submenus on the touchscreen.
And what is long range, in e Vitara world? Well, it's just 264 miles. Better than either the 49kWh car (213 miles) or the Allgrip-e (245 miles), sure, but hardly worrying the likes of the EV3 or Elroq 85, for instance.
Attaining anything like 264 miles would need you to achieve 14.3kWh/62.1 miles, or 4.3 miles/kWh. So it was with some alarm that, while testing the FWD 61kWh Motion on 18-inch wheels, on a moderately mild day, along flat roads with no major drains on the electrics switched on in the cabin and driving the car in a largely sedate fashion (given its performance is so leisurely), the trip computer indicated we'd done nothing better than 2.9 miles/kWh. Which is tragic, but not as bad as 2.5 miles/kWh, which was the Suzuki's long-term-consumption figure. They would result in theoretical maximums of 177 and 152.5 miles respectively, from a 100 per cent charge. So an 80 per cent public charge at 2.5 miles/kWh would deliver a mere 122 miles, on the e Vitara. Is that honestly good enough in this class these days?
Oh, and on that note, the max charging rate is 70kW DC - way off the prevailing standards of the class in 2025. It needs to be at least 100kW, more like 150.
Ride & Handling
The handling of the e Vitara is OK, with minimal amounts of body lean and a high level of grip, so it's more capable in the corners than it probably needs to be. The issue is that any trace of involvement in these circumstances is completely eroded away by the inconsistent and feel-free steering. Sometimes it feels overly light in your hands, at other times remarkably heavy.
That's not as bad as the primary ride and rolling refinement, though. The secondary ride is composed to the extent that if the Suzuki is travelling along smooth tarmac at about 50mph, it's comfortable enough. But the minute it encounters any significant lumps, bumps or compressions in the surface, it thuds up and down messily on its suspension with a disconcerting lack of control. It makes it actively uncomfortable on undulating country lanes, B-roads and rucked-up urban routes, while too much wind noise around the B-pillars and excessive tyre roar at higher speeds further serve to detract from the e Vitara's otherwise-acceptable but rather safe driving experience.
Value
An area of strength for the Suzuki, as the nominal prices start at £29,999 for a 49kWh FWD Motion. You then add £3,000 for a 61kWh battery (£32,999) and another two grand to put a second motor on the e Vitara's back axle (£34,999), while the flagship Ultra spec - only available on the 61kWh cars - requires another £2,800 on its equivalent Motion; so £35,799 for the FWD and topping out at £37,799 for the Allgrip-e.
As you'd expect from this company, even a Motion comes with a ton of stuff fitted as standard, with the Ultra only adding a few nice if non-essential luxuries - and there are no optional extras anywhere in the range, the only additional prices coming for paints: Arctic White Pearl Metallic monocolour is the solitary standard finish, with the other five single-tone choices costing £650 apiece, while the five bitone alternatives (only on Ultra cars) command a £950 premium.
However, until December 31, 2025, Suzuki UK is offering its own £3,750 'grant scheme' of reductions, bringing the range price-bracket down to £26,249 to £34,049. The company said it would review this grant on a 'quarter-by-quarter' basis, so there's every chance these lower figures could hold into next year and beyond, making the e Vitara even better value than it is at the 'full' advertised prices.
Verdict
While a decent first EV effort from Suzuki, there are issues with the e Vitara that show how late the Japanese company was in finally coming to the zero-emission party. This new electric SUV is inoffensive to look at, well-equipped, reasonably spacious within for passengers, it largely drives in an amenable manner, and it seems to be priced at a level that should garner it plenty of showroom interest.
On the flipside, though, its ride comfort and refinement can at times be considerably below-par, the range, real-world electrical efficiency and charging speeds are way behind the curve for this class of vehicle, the boot space isn't great, FWD models are seriously lacking in torque, and there are issues with interior quality and the vexatious nature of some infotainment-related controls. At once both promising and mildly infuriating, there's enough in the e Vitara that should encourage buyers, but we have to conclude that there are a number of notably superior compact electric crossovers to the Suzuki which are out there in the world already.
