Hybrid mega-test part one: Lexus vs Honda vs Subaru vs Toyota

We’ve assembled this quartet to acknowledge the fact that in the wake of Dieselgate, hybrid may soon overtake the diesel as the default powertrain in this wildly popular class. And given it is a class in which diesel has until now dominated, that really would represent a watershed moment. You might say that hybrid technology had properly arrived. What we’re therefore aiming to discover is threefold: which offers the best all-round package, how does each stack up in terms of ownership costs and does any pass muster as a truly convincing family car?

Our contenders are from Toyota, Subaru, Lexus and Honda, although it’s not an exhaustive cast. Mitsubishi builds a plug-in hybrid Outlander and Nissan will finally hybridise the smaller Qashqai for the next generation, which is due next year. The Europeans have been notably behind the curve. Citroën only recently launched a plug-in hybrid C5 Aircross and Peugeot will introduce the 5008 PHEV later this year, and the premium brands have also taken their time – not that an Audi Q5 hybrid or an electrified Porsche Macan would ever need to compete with Subaru and co in terms of cost. Ultimately, for those who want to buy now at a reasonable price, the cars before you are your core post-diesel options.

Going in chronological order, you’d never guess the Lexus NX, seen here in F Sport guise and therefore fitted with firmer suspension, is by far the oldest of our quartet, at six years of age. The origami design means it’s still the most outwardly desirable (or polarising), but at £42,500 perhaps it should be. That asking price means it costs roughly £4000 more than either the Subaru and Honda and £5000 more than the Toyota. Put another way, for the same outlay you could put our top-spec Toyota RAV4 on your drive with enough spare change for 42,000 miles of unleaded, according to the 48mpg WLTP economy figure, which is easily the best of our group.

In truth, price is the least of the Lexus’s problems. The NX has always been a compromised car, not least because its low-speed ride often feels brittle enough to undermine the coupé-like snugness of the cabin ambience. The once advanced but now limp-feeling powertrain – a 2.5-litre Atkinson-cycle petrol engine operating in tandem with an electric motor via a CVT, with an additional and entirely separate electric motor driving the rear wheels – also at times exemplifies the dissonance we’ve come to dislike about hybrid technology. That is an engine speed bearing no relation whatsoever to what’s happening down at road level as crankshaft revolutions are kept at optimal efficiency while the CVT modulates wheel speed. I’ll accept that enthusiasts feel this more keenly than most, and the average NX owner will rarely use more than half-throttle – the point after which the undesirable effects become most noticeable – but an engine conspicuously straining at high revs hardly whispers ‘premium’.

In this company it gets worse for the poor old Lexus, although the deeply bolstered seats are the most comfortable here and the cabin is not only richly upholstered but also solidly built – typical Lexus strong points. Beyond the ageing powertrain, the next issue is space, or lack thereof. As with the Honda and the Toyota, the rear seats recline, but the boot is the smallest and it has the highest lip. In terms of capacity, its 475 litres play 497 for the Honda, 520 for the Subaru and a deep but shallow 580 litres for the Toyota. Factor in the least intuitive infotainment system in an already weak field and mediocre fuel economy (more on which shortly), and the Lexus seems a true case of style over substance. Today’s prospective hybrid crossover shopper might even sample the NX and conclude that, on the basis of its most attractive and expensive member, nothing else in this niche class would be worth consideration.

But it takes only minutes behind the wheel of the CR-V Hybrid to appreciate how big a mistake that would be. The fifth generation of the world’s best-selling crossover is the first of its line to feature a hybrid powertrain, and the car feels made for it. Compared with the arrangement in the Lexus, Honda’s 2.0-litre VTEC petrol engine is less directly involved, being positioned upstream of an 181bhp electric drive motor and tasked chiefly with feeding the car’s generator motor, which in turn charges a small lithium ion battery. It sounds like a complicated solution but the result is a surprisingly natural driving experience reinforced by the calming ambience of an airy cabin.

Honda uses a single-speed gearbox so you get a good dose of EV-style responsiveness at low speeds, much of the time without any combustion activity at all. Ask for extra power and the system remains mild-mannered, resisting any intrusive engine flare-ups better than any other car here. At higher speeds a lock-up clutch then allows the engine to drive the wheels directly, but again this feels decently natural, and at all times you can use the paddle shifters to usefully vary the level of regenerative braking.

Overall, it’s the normality of the CR-V that makes it such a strong proposition. You don’t notice its objective flaws because, beyond the awful touchscreen display, it has so few. Inside, there isn’t the expansive dash or the serious, perched-up driving position recognisable from larger SUVs (the RAV4 offers both), but perceived quality is high, the ergonomics are generous given the neat footprint and rolling refinement is excellent. Were you to conduct a test with blindfolded passengers chauffeured in the CR-V then afterwards in, say, an Audi A4, they would struggle to tell the difference.

The Forester strikes a different tone. It’s a typically rugged, full-time four-wheel-drive Subaru effort denied arguably its most natural powertrain pairing since the brand dropped its 2.0-litre diesel boxer engine two years ago. What we have instead is the most tentative – but also the most lightweight – hybrid application in this group, with a 16bhp electric motor working alongside a naturally aspirated flat-four 148bhp petrol. But despite the welcome electric torque injection for initial throttle response, this is a slow car, and if the turbocharged Forester STI of yore was an email fired from here to there in an instant, its hybrid successor is a written letter delivered by bicycle. A quick drag race proves as much, the RAV4 edging out the CR-V with reasonable ease, with the Lexus a car length or two behind the Honda by 60mph and the straining Subaru way off the pace. The ‘e-Boxer’ Forester is also the least able to glide about in EV mode at low speeds and remains prone to over-revving.

However, it fights back with a surprisingly well-appointed cabin, acres of space inside and an appealing dose of good old-fashioned utility. Because of its smaller battery, how that battery is positioned and how the CVT has been redeveloped, its braked-trailer towing capacity of 1870kg easily betters that of the Toyota (1650kg), the Lexus (1500kg) and the Honda, whose 750kg potential will immediately take it out of the running for some. Admittedly, these hybrids still fail to match most diesel alternatives, but the Subaru is closest and is also the most natural off-roader, with the greatest ground clearance among the assembled and well-calibrated off-road ESP modes, although the Toyota also impresses in this respect.

And it is the Toyota that, in the eyes of Autocar readers, does most for the hybrid crossover cause, at least initially. The brutish design brings some of the toughness owners in the US currently associate with the brand thanks to models such as the Tacoma pick-up. The interior sports the sort of authentic details found in cars designed to be driven wearing work gloves – rubber-rimmed rotary dials for the ventilation, chunky toggle switches for the seat heaters – and there’s a generous array of electrical ports. The boot floor can also be flipped over for a wipe-down plastic surface, and yet, barring the occasional hard plastic panel, overall the cabin feels solidly put together for the asking price.

Under the skin, the latest RAV4 is also much improved. Its new platform is said to be half as stiff again as the old hardware, and it has increased ground clearance but a lower centre of gravity. Architecturally, the powertrain is recognisable as that from its Lexus corporate cousin, although crucially it’s a more recent iteration and uses a nickel-metal hydride battery for better cold-weather performance. With more than 220bhp when both electric motors and the 2.5-litre engine work together, the RAV4 can also feel startlingly quick, and as with other cars that use this latest Toyota hybrid set-up (notably the Corolla), there’s a much more linear nature to the power delivery. It’s a much more complete product than the previous generation.