Suzuki e Vitara prototype review: brand’s first EV shows plenty of promise

Suzuki’s first pure-electric car is here and it wears a very familiar name. The e Vitara (no prizes for guessing what the ‘e’ stands for) was revealed in November 2024 and ahead of its sales launch in June and customer deliveries in September this year, we’ve been given early access to Suzuki’s new electric car in prototype form.

While a few small amendments will be made ahead of the first customer cars arriving, we’ve been assured that what we’re driving here is pretty representative, or at least ‘90 per cent’ of it. 

Following closely from the eVX concept’s design, the e Vitara also looks very similar to Toyota’s next electric vehicle, the Urban Cruiser. That’s no surprise because Toyota and Suzuki have partnered on several cars recently – such as Suzuki’s Swace and Across – but unlike those two cars, Suzuki took the lead role in developing the e Vitara.

Underpinning the e Vitara isn’t a shrunken version of the Toyota bZ4X’s e-TNGA platform, but an all-new ‘Heartect-e’ architecture that Suzuki jointly developed with Toyota and Daihatsu. Made specifically for BEVs, Suzuki says Heartect-e allows for a ‘lightweight structure, high-voltage protection, and a spacious interior due to short overhangs’. Perhaps more importantly for the e Vitara’s brand recognition, Heartect-e caters to dual as well as single-motor configurations, ensuring Suzuki’s ‘AllGRIP’ four-wheel drive capacity lives on into the electric era.

Used - available now

2016 Suzuki

Vitara

55,730 milesAutomaticDiesel1.6L

Cash £11,795

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2020 Suzuki

Vitara

23,843 milesManualPetrol1.4L

Cash £13,597

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2020 Suzuki

Vitara

11,613 milesManualPetrol1.4L

Cash £16,041

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2019 Suzuki

Vitara

40,166 milesManualPetrol1.0L

Cash £9,300

View Vitara

The importance of offering the new electric Vitara with all-wheel drive is more significant than many other small electric crossovers, especially when you consider 30 per cent of all e Vitara sales are expected to be in dual-motor form.

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Fitted with a 61kWh battery, the dual-motor we’re driving has 181bhp and 307Nm of torque, capable of providing a 0-62mph time of 7.4 seconds. The single motor version comes with either the 61kWh battery with 172bhp and 189Nm of torque for an 8.7-second 0-62mph time, or a 49kWh pack with 142bhp and 189Nm of torque, dropping the 0-62mph time to 9.6 seconds.

While it’s nice to know the electric Vitara will easily beat the current hybrid model to 62mph (it takes 13.5 second in AllGrip form), range is the big talking point for a family EV such as this. The e Vitara’s base 49kWh version can cover 214 miles on a charge with the single-motor 61kWh model upping this to 265 miles. The dual-motor’s range is understandably less, at 246 miles. Every e Vitara comes with a heat pump as standard, so maintaining that range all year round should be relatively manageable.

Those figures are pretty competitive for the class, which will see the Suzuki up against the likes of the Volkswagen ID.3 Pro (265 miles), Kia EV3 (267 miles) and Skoda Elroq (265 miles). It’s worth remembering, though, that for a bit more money you can get all those EVs with bigger batteries and longer ranges.

Charging is less competitive for the Suzuki, because while it has an impressive 150kW maximum charging speed (Stellantis’ Jeep Avenger and Vauxhall Mokka top out at 100kW), it’ll take 45 minutes to recharge 10-80 per cent, whether you’re in the small or large battery model. Our prototype car didn’t have the capacity for rapid charging, so we’re keen to try these odd figures out for ourselves when production models arrive.

The industry standard EV battery warranty seems to be eight years, but whatever pack you choose for your e Vitara, Suzuki will give it a 10-year warranty. It’s possible to match this with the car’s warranty through a service-activated scheme, too, up to 10 years or 100,000 miles.

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At 4,275mm long and with a wheelbase of 2,700mm, the e Vitara is 100mm longer than the current hybrid-powered Vitara, while the wheelbase is 200mm longer. Couple this with a wider and taller stature and the e Vitara looks like an offering that could sit in a segment above the Vitara hybrid. 

Jumping inside it certainly feels more SUV than crossover due to the upright driving position. The result is that front visibility is good, although the rear view is hampered slightly by the thick C-pillar and raked back windscreen. 

There are touches of the eVX concept’s interior design with the shape of the air vents, centre console and the two-screen layout, but overall it’s a much more contemporary look than you get in the rather dated Vitara hybrid. Those two screens operate a Toyota-based infotainment system and it works pretty well. The 10.25-inch driver’s display relays all the key information clearly, with scope to customise the outer sections with radio, map or EV data. The 10.1-inch central screen is also pretty straightforward, although we experienced a little bit of lag between the menus, and the sub-menus to operate the heated seats seemed nonsensical. 

Other nods to Toyota’s influence on development comes from the rotary gear selector in the middle. The selected gear is displayed on the driver’s screen, which is just as well because the light-up readout above the gear selector is impossible to see when it’s sunny. The physical controls for climate and trip computer information on the steering wheel are refreshing. But the hinged caps for the USB ports (impressively, both USB-C and USB can be found front and rear) seemed a little overengineered to us. 

Interior build quality of this prototype car was promising, with the coloured dash material having a nice dampened feel – combined with rather robust switchgear. We enjoyed the synthetic leather and fabric upholstered seats, too. Areas we weren’t so keen on were the doors, where we counted no less than seven different materials, plus a large swatch of hard scratchy plastic on the top of the dash. The centre console, mainly made of piano-black plastic, also seems ripe for scratches after hard use.

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Space inside the e Vitara is pretty good, with front occupants given plenty of room. The floor in the rear, while flat, is quite high though, so taller adults might struggle to get comfortable on long journeys. The door bins can hold large water bottles and if you fold the middle rear seat down you’ll get an extra two cup-holders. The two outer rear seats have a set of ISOFIX child-seat mount points, too. 

The rear seats are on a slider, which means you can access the boot without folding the seats. We’re not sure about the practicality of this in the real world because we’d expect most families to leave the rear seat in their rearmost position, allowing for as little as 244 litres of boot space. You can increase this to 310 litres if you pull the back seats forward, although this is still way off the 355 litres a Jeep Avenger gives you, and is nowhere near the Hyundai Kona’s 466-litre capacity. 

On the move the e Vitara feels pretty nippy from a standstill, although we did notice a drop in power from the 50mph mark. Given so many EVs (even family-focused crossover ones) deliver eye-watering performance, especially in dual-motor guise, the e Vitara feels different. If it’s a case of prioritising efficiency and range over acceleration, we’re all for it. 

In the bends the e Vitara reminds you that it weighs a not insignificant 1,899kg (1,702kg in single-motor guise). The suspension is obviously set up for comfort over cornering performance, although while there’s body roll to deal with, the surprisingly weighty steering feels in tune with the e Vitara’s mass.