Suzuki e Vitara 2026 review: Ultra

Price and features – Does it represent good value for the price? What features does it come with?

6 / 10

The e Vitara isn’t off to a good start on the pricing front. This small electric SUV starts from $49,000, which is a drive-away price at the time of writing. This already strikes it out of the value leagues, nowhere close to the sub-$40,000 starting price of China-sourced alternatives like the Leapmotor B10, Jaecoo J5 or BYD Atto 2.

Instead, the e Vitara plays in the big mainstream price leagues with the Kia EV3, Hyundai Kona Electric or even the MG S5, and even then the Ultra all-wheel drive we sampled for this review has an eye-watering $9000 price jump over the base Motion 2WD variant.

This pitches it against the most expensive versions of the EV3 and Kona, and in the same pricing league as the Volvo EX30, all three of which offer a significantly higher electric driving range.

We’ll get more into that later, but the spec sheet for the e Vitara at this price reads more like that of a combustion car, rather than a new-age EV.

Highlights include the futuristic 18-inch alloy wheels, auto high beam LED headlights, multi-tone sports seats with electric adjust for the driver, heated front seats, a premium sound system and an opening sunroof.

It also scores a 10.1-inch multimedia touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster, and ambient lighting which makes it feel a bit more swish at night.

It’s good stuff typical of a mainstream brand, but at significantly less money, rivals from China are offering larger screens and more features.

Plus, while you’re getting a Japanese brand badge, the e Vitara is actually built in India alongside its Toyota relation, the Urban Cruiser, which we’re unlikely to see in Australia.

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Design – Is there anything interesting about its design?

7 / 10

The e Vitara is an odd looking car, with a super upright front and rear combining with sharp motifs across its blocky body.

It’s a departure from anything Suzuki has done before, with only echoes of the current Vitara combustion SUV at the front.

It moves Suzuki into new styling territory with the contemporary angular design feeling more similar to the Kia EV3 rather than the more curvy, contemporary designs seen on some of its more affordable Chinese competition.

The interior updates bring Suzuki into the current decade, with more screens, better software, and a more swish design compared to the increasingly dated interiors of its combustion models.

It has a more conservative approach than some newer names to the Australian market, with comparatively tame screens, the existence of actual buttons for some climate functions, and familiar switchgear, like traditional indicator stalks and a rotary-style shifter.

In fact, the shifter and some of the other buttons seem to be shared components with Toyota, because they are the same as what you might find in the bZ4X, for better or worse.

The software is basic. It features a handful of screens with little depth to the info on offer. However, it is quick to respond, and the dashboard offers a degree of customisation in its layouts. 

Even if it’s not quite the stellar software offering that you might see in a Tesla, it’s the best software Suzuki has offered and it seems to just work without being distracting, so that’s something at least.

Practicality – How practical is its space and tech inside?

7 / 10

There’s major pros and cons for the e Vitara on the practicality front. In some ways it’s a smart and pragmatic cabin, in other ways it leaves a lot to be desired.

Up front the seats are an easy win. Nicely bolstered with good padding, they’re surprisingly comfortable on a long drive despite a high seat base and interesting material choices.

Ergonomically, I felt as though the seating position was a bit high. It feels like an ‘early’ EV in that sense, with the batteries clearly taking up floor space. For shorter people, this will be a good thing, with the car offering a commanding view of the road, but it doesn't feel quite right for me.

The cabin offers ease of access to all the key controls, with physical toggles for the climate unit and a dial for volume. There are some buttons on the steering wheel for adjusting the digital instruments and key cruise functions, but no paddle shifters for controlling regenerative braking.

The centre console is the biggest design blunder. The raised bridge piece is almost entirely gloss plastic, which is impossible to keep clean and will scratch over time. The controls are also chunky, taking up a lot of real estate in this essential location. They could easily have been compressed down to a smaller area with more storage on offer instead.

The padded armrest is too low and too far back. It could have had adjustable height and reach where it sits, and could have offered more storage underneath as well.

To the e Vitara’s credit, there’s a set of two very nice cupholders up front, but using them with a bottle will block access to the physical climate controls and limit access to the wireless charger.

There’s also a tray beneath that houses the 12v, USB-A and USB-C ports, but it’s a bit too height-limited for larger items like handbags. It's finished in a scratchy plastic so loose objects slide around. There are large bottle holders with dividers in each of the front doors.

The rear seat continues with the nice seat trim and offers quite an impressive amount of legroom in its default position. The floor is flat, too, so the centre position is useful enough in terms of space to put your feet. Each door has a bottle holder and there’s a pocket on the back of the passenger seat. The centre seat folds down to make for a padded armrest with two cupholders.

However, there are no power outlets for rear passengers, nor are there adjustable air vents. The headliner and window tint back there is also dark, making the space feel claustrophobic, and the high seat bases combine with a tight roofline (blame the sunroof) to make for a space I only just fit into, despite ample leg room. 

The boot also feels small, but the e Vitara has a trick up its sleeve. With just 238 litres in its default configuration, it’s a small but oblong cargo area, but it swallowed our small and large CarsGuide travel cases. The second seating row is on rails and can move forward to nearly double the available volume. In this position, which would only leave enough space for small children or pets, the boot can absorb the whole three-piece luggage set with space to spare.

There’s a small amount of additional storage under the floor, good for charging cables, although there’s no spare wheel, only a tyre repair kit.

A lack of full-size power outlet or vehicle-to-load discharge system is a notable omission for an electric vehicle in 2026. There’s also no frunk, with the entire under-bonnet area taken up by high-voltage and battery cooling gear.

Under the bonnet – What are the key stats for its motor?

7 / 10

The e Vitara Ultra impresses when it comes to its drive hardware. With 135kW/307Nm it’s punchy for a small SUV, with the 0-100km/h sprint time officially measured at 7.4 seconds.

It feels faster to get to 60 though, with a big surge of torque instantly available. This Ultra grade features a dual-motor all-wheel-drive set-up, and even has specific traction settings for off-road scenarios, making it theoretically more capable than some of its rivals.

Efficiency – What is its driving range? What is its charging time?

4 / 10

This all-wheel-drive set-up comes at a significant cost. The e Vitara Ultra has a WLTP driving range of 395km and an official energy consumption of 16.5kWh/100km. Far from the 500km-plus range of some of its rivals.

But the story gets worse. While I tend to pull close to if not occasionally more than the official driving range from Hyundai and Kia models, the e Vitara fell well short of its quoted range in my testing.

While not a scientific test by any means, I drove it in regular city driving conditions with some freeway jaunts. The projected range my car was indicating on the dash was just 295km.

While the Toyota bZ4X is fairly notorious for keeping a huge emergency range reserve which impacts its overall driving range, 100km less than the claim is simply not acceptable.

It also overshot its energy consumption significantly, with the car indicating 17.9kWh/100km, which I would expect from an EV a full size bracket above this.

Compounding these issues is the sub-par charging speed. 70kW was once okay for a 61kWh battery, but is now behind the pace, with most rivals quoting 100kW of peak DC charging speed or significantly more.

As such it takes about 45 minutes to charge the e Vitara Ultra from 10-80 per cent, which is well behind the 20-30 minutes of many of its rivals. At least the AC charging speed is an acceptable 11kW.

Driving – What's it like to drive?

8 / 10

For all its flaws, the e Vitara is a nice car to drive. Unlike many of its rivals, the driving ergonomics and switchgear feel instantly familiar in this small SUV. You’re not met with an array of weird touch-based systems, strangely placed screens, or even annoying indicator stalks as you are in so many of this car’s rivals from newer brands.

It’s refreshingly straightforward when you hit the road, with more traditional assisted steering, standard pedal feel and nicely blended or near-single-pedal regenerative braking, depending on how you set it.

The e Vitara in Ultra trim with its dual-motor system is also alarmingly rapid, at least to the 60km/h mark, with its raised body lurching forward with some urgency when you stomp on the accelerator.

It’s not like any Suzuki you’ve driven before, that’s for sure.

Despite this impressive sprint ability, things are kept under control with smart traction software and halfway decent tyres keeping things civilised. There’s no violent torque-steer trying to rip the steering wheel out of your hands, or pure tyre torture you get from some EVs in this class.

The ride is comfortable, too. It's not as harsh as the likes of the Tesla Model Y, for example, but it’s also not too spongy like many China-sourced rivals.

Day-to-day it absorbs harsher road imperfections in its stride, and handles cornering with surprising grace, despite what feels like a tall ride height. Its biggest ride flaw is long undulations in the road, which give the car an unsettling floating feeling at certain cadences, as the weight of the battery starts to pendulum.

For the most part though, the e Vitara is refreshingly straightforward and feels familiar to drive, which should keep fans of the brand and those looking for a more traditional Japanese car drive experience pleased.

Safety – What safety equipment is fitted? What is its safety rating?

7 / 10

The array of active safety kit present on the e Vitara is also nicely tuned, with key systems like auto emergency braking (AEB), lane-keep assist, and blind-spot monitoring all well-calibrated and not needing to be turned off like a lot of this car’s more affordable rivals.

The adaptive cruise control proved to be compliant in my time with the car.

The Suzuki has seven airbags and a four-star ANCAP safety rating, which should still make it a very safe car. It's also, somehow, the highest-scoring current Suzuki model.

Ownership – What warranty is offered? What are its service intervals? What are its running costs?

7 / 10

Suzuki offers a five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty, which is outpaced by all of its rivals from China and most of its rivals from Japan.

The e Vitara needs to see a workshop once every 12 months or 20,000km and comes with five years of roadside assistance to match the warranty.

The brand’s genuine service program covers five years or 100,000km, with costs for this Ultra variant varying between $289 and $799 per visit, coming in at a surprisingly expensive yearly average of $503. There are combustion cars with more moving parts that are cheaper to run.

An average fast DC charge session (10-80 per cent at 60c per kWh) will cost around $21.60, while an off-peak at-home charge (at 16c per kWh) of the same amount will cost $5.76.

Verdict