Suzuki e-Vitara

First electric car from the Japanese brand takes a no-nonsense approach to win favour

- By GEORGE HILL

On sale Now Price from £29,999

WHEN DINING At a fancy restaurant, a menu full of unfamiliar dishes and ingredients often leads to the nervous question: “Excuse me, what’s this?”. It’s also a situation that new car buyers can find themselves in, especially when looking at the fresh wave of electric models.

By naming its first all-electric car the e-Vitara, though, Suzuki is reassuring buyers that this is no alien and scary departure, but an electric equivalent of the same no-nonsense small SUV formula that the regular petrol-engined Vitara has followed for 37-odd years.

A fresh rival to the Kia EV3 and Renault 4 (R4), the e-Vitara offers a choice of two batteries. The 49kWh version (47.8kWh usable) has a 142bhp electric motor and a 9.6sec 0-62mph time, and we’ve yet to try it. We have, though, driven the 61kWh car (59.8kWh usable), which has a more muscular, 172bhp motor that knocks almost a second off that 0-62mph time.