Sometimes I start to doubt my objectivity when a car that is supposed to be the dog’s nuts isn’t quite what I expected. I’ve read a rash of other reviews on the PHEV this week and they all seem to praise a wonderful car.

Well, not all of them. Clarkson (remember him?) didn’t like it at all. Mainly because he felt the Outlander wasn’t a good vehicle in the first place. I never thought I’d agree with JC but he’s spot on with the Mitsubishi.

I heap praise on Mitsubishi for building a plug-in that is backed up by a petrol-electric hybrid power plant but the Outlander remains a rather soul-less SUV, with a sleepy 2.0 petrol engine and fairly painful styling.

Most depressing of all is that you will never achieve the claimed 148mpg driving in the real world. The PHEV has averaged 32mpg over the last week. It can only go ‘super-mpg’ if you use it on very short journeys in electric mode.

And as the PHEV only has a battery only range of 32 miles, well, you see my point.

Maybe this is the start of a rash of plug-in hybrid models which will improve with time? I hope so because the idea is a good one – just poorly executed in this case.