Group travel savings

Hybrid power helps to make these seven-seaters cost-effective to run, and they look great value if you buy them at three years old

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IF YOU HAVE an expanding family but worry about your fuel bills expanding with it, what car should you choose? The most obvious answer, in this day and age, is a seven-seat SUV with fuel-efficient hybrid power.

The Hyundai Santa Fe and Nissan X-Trail meet those criteria. Both are regular hybrids, so you don’t have to plug them in to recharge the battery (the engine does this for you automatically instead). They also have four-wheel drive for added traction when needed in slippery conditions.

Usefully, you can save big money on either of these cars if you buy them used. But which should you choose? We've tested them back to back to find out.

DRIVING

Performance, ride, handling, refinement

The Santa Fe’s 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrol engine might sound small for a large SUV, but when combined with an electric motor, it produces a healthy 227bhp. The X-Trail takes this a step further; its engine is even smaller, at 1.5 litres and three cylinders, but it acts as a generator for two electric motors, never powering the wheels directly like the Santa Fe’s does. With 201bhp, it can accelerate from 0-60mph in just 6.9sec - usefully quicker than the Santa Fe (8.3sec).

The power delivery of the Santa Fe’s more conventional hybrid system feels clunkier and busier than the X-Trail’s; it hesitates as electric power hands over to petrol when you accelerate hard.

This feeling is exacerbated as the automatic gearbox shifts through its six gears; the X-Trail’s single-gear set-up is much smoother.

As a result, the X-Trail is calmer to travel in. True, there’s a touch more road noise than in the Santa Fe, but a relative lack of engine and gearbox activity makes the X-Trail more serene and relaxing overall. Both cars isolate against wind noise well.