Gac Aion Ut vs Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross

What's the difference?

The Aion UT is a cleverly-specified little hatchback and a great entry-point into electric motoring. The software needs a bit of work from a usability perspective, plus the spongy ride and cutesy styling might not be for everyone. 

However, with strong points including driving range, cabin space and value, there’s even a pitch for it in some cases to be an only car compared to most of its price rivals, which are more likely to be thought of as a second car runabout in a two-car garage.

The pick of the range is definitely the entry-level Premium. It comes in at a headline-grabbing price with specs to blow rivals out of the water, while only missing out on a few luxuries.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with accommodation and meals provided.

The Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross Plug-in Hybrid EV is an interesting inclusion for the brand, especially as it is typically considered a ‘value player’ in the market.

But with negligible real-world fuel consumption benefits if you drive beyond the limited EV range and a high price premium over the non-PHEV models, it’s important you see if the sums add up for your particular needs.

Primarily going to use the car for running around town? Cool. Think the 50-ish-kay EV range will work for you and make you happy? Amazing. Sold on the look of the car? Hat tipped.

But let me say this - if you are considering the Eclipse Cross PHEV, there are some alternatives you should also have on your list, including the MG HS PHEV, the Hyundai Ioniq PHEV, Kia Niro PHEV, and - the one I’d buy - a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid. For me, plug-in hybrid tech is a bit of a halfway house, in most instances offering too high a price premium for the range you’re getting to drive electric. Heck, a Kona Electric isn’t much more than the top-spec Exceed PHEV, and I’d have that if I wanted a real day-to-day EV experience.

GAC tells us the UT hatch was designed in Milan, Italy, but it also isn’t ashamed of the Chinese influence on its overall appearance, like the ultra-short bonnet and Chinese city-car style face.

Along the side it has a modern, aerodynamic profile, and the ultra-short overhangs and long wheelbase maximise the amount of room for batteries under the floor and interior space.

The rear feels a lot like a modern Mini, with its bulbous tailgate and protruding light clusters, spiced up with a sporty spoiler piece jutting out.

It’s not a bad looking thing and it’s available in an array of fun colours.

On the inside it seems to follow the established rule-book of Chinese automakers, with plush trims, big screens with minimal physical buttons as well as a contemporary two-spoke steering wheel.

There’s a trendy floating console which hosts the cupholders and wireless charger on the Luxury grade, and an array of interesting patterns and textures through the doors and dash which you wouldn’t have once seen on a car at this price-point.

However, it is worth noting that while the seats are quite nice, and the steering wheel is a stand-out touchpoint, the trims on the doors and across the dash-top are hard plastics, more so than some of this car’s rivals.

You’re going to be able to tell the PHEV model from its more conventional counterparts by those oversized ‘Plug-in Hybrid EV’ badges on the front doors, and if you want to tell those behind you what you’re driving, there’s also a ‘PHEV’ badge there, too. Wait, wasn’t the plan to do away with the term ‘PHEV’, Mitsubishi? 

But aside from that, the outside features just the different 18-inch alloy wheels (which are the same on all PHEV models, no matter the cost - I think that’s a bit lame, because if I’m spending $7500 on the Exceed I’d like a different wheel design!). Oh, and the Aspire and Exceed get that different lower front splitter, too.

Plus the PHEV has two fuel filler doors - one on each side of the car over the rear wheels. The driver’s side one is the EV charging ports (x2 - detailed below), and the passenger’s side one is for the petrol. Note: while the EV port is push-openable, the petrol cap still requires you to lift a lever in the driver’s footwell. 

It may be categorised a small SUV but at 4545mm long, riding on a 2670mm wheelbase, 1805mm wide and 1685mm tall, it’s big for its boots. The popular Mazda CX-5 is only 5mm longer, and it plays in the midsize SUV segment!

Inside there are some design differences, with a specific gear joystick-style selector, and a different instrument panel.

It is impressive how the brand has managed to shoehorn a petrol engine, two electric motors, a battery pack and more into the car, but there are some practicality implications. Read about them in the next section.

In terms of interior space, the Aion UT stands out with its spacious cabin. At 182cm tall, I am easily able to find a comfortable seating position, and visibility out the front sides and rear, while not as good as some small SUVs, isn’t bad.

There’s lots of headroom, and while I mentioned the hard plastic door cards before, there’s enough padding everywhere your elbows are going to touch to make it feel a bit nicer than perhaps it is.

The main drawback of this car for me is the lack of tactile buttons and the frustrating software.

The main screen isn’t particularly well utilised, being taken up by either a background or the navigation map, with an array of typically small shortcuts across the bottom for important features like the climate control or settings menus.

You can pre-set a few information panels which sit above the shortcut bar as in many rival cars and there’s also a shortcut tray which can be hosted on the driver’s side and configured with a variety of shortcuts and settings.

It’s just a bit clumsy to use, and the array of poorly-labelled settings menus for things like active safety equipment feel needlessly complicated.

I’d love to see this car with physical controls for climate and multimedia to make it easier to live with.

Up front the storage is decent. There are big pockets in the doors and a large storage tray between the driver and front passenger thanks to a flat floor. There’s also a slightly weird storage box under the touchscreen which has a net inside, good for more delicate objects you don’t want flying around the cabin.

On the floating console there are two cupholders which are a bit too shallow for my liking, and the wireless charger feels almost pointless because its made of a hard plastic, so your phone just slides right off in the corners. The cabled outlets are hidden beneath which allows for tidy cable management and the centre armrest console box is a healthy size.

The rear seat is comparatively basic, although touches on the key points. Its main advantage is how generous the space is. My frame was able to fit behind my own driving position with heaps of room for my knees, and just enough room for my head despite the dip in the roof for the sunroof shade in the Luxury-grade car we tested. There may be even more headroom in the base car.

The flat floor makes the space useful even for three across in a pinch and there’s a drop-down armrest with (again, shallow) cupholders. There are pockets on the back of both front seats and smallish pockets in each door. The array of soft trims continues, too, and the back of the centre console features a partially adjustable air vent. Luxury spec cars get a single USB rear power outlet.

As with many Chinese cars in this segment, the generous rear seat space comes at a cost to the boot. It measures just 321 litres, which is slightly smaller than its main opponents in this category, although larger than some hatchbacks like the Toyota Corolla, for example.

It has its advantages, though. The floor is two-tiered, and can offer a flat load area with the rear seats folded down, or a deeper boot in its lower position. Underneath there’s a cutaway good for charging equipment and the tyre repair kit (sorry, no spare wheel in here).

Unlike some EVs, the Aion UT doesn’t get a frunk (front boot) for additional storage.

Up front, the cabin is a pretty smart place, with nice enough materials and finishes, and a few good storage options. There’s a cubby in front of the shifter, but oddly enough it doesn’t have a wireless charger (there are 2x USB 2.0 ports above) and isn’t quite big enough for a smartphone (even the smaller ones don’t fit there all that easily), and there are cup holders between the seats, a decent covered centre console bin, and door pockets large enough for bottles.

The PHEV models get a different instrument cluster dial for EV driving readout info, but all have the old-school 4.2-inch TFT colour display that lacks the size and usability of some rivals with larger info screens - the MG HS PHEV, for instance, has a 12.3-inch digital display, which shows you a lot more info than this tiny little screen does. Heck, there’s not even a digital speedometer in there - and you only get one if you buy the Exceed model, which has a head-up display (HUD).

That’s part of the problem with the way this car’s interface operates. If you want the most detailed information you need to use the touchscreen media system, but that negates the usability of the media functions. On multiple occasions I found myself switching between Apple CarPlay phone calls and searching for that particular driving info screen I found most useful (there are about 15 screens to choose from, and plenty of them are hard to decipher).

It’s a huge disappointment for a customer who might want to see all that detailed information but also listen to a podcast, answer a call, follow their phone’s mapping or just have anything other than the hybrid info come up on the infotainment screen. The screen itself - an 8.0-inch unit, with sat nav integrated into the top spec only - is fine, but small compared to today’s rivals.

In the back seat, there’s a compromise for cabin space. The leg room is good, but the seat has been bumped up to accommodate some of the electrical hardware and the petrol tank, meaning someone my size (182cm/6’0”) will find they’ve got enough room for their legs but not their head, and those even larger will really need to take care getting in and out. While pre-facelift examples of this car had a clever sliding second row seat, that’s gone. It was never a feature in any PHEV version, and undoubtedly the layout of the battery pack has something to do with that. 

The double pane sunroof no doubt eats into the space in the rear to a degree as well, and in the Exceed it likely feels a bit more cramped because of the black headliner. 

While three adults could potentially fit across the back row for very short trips, there are dual ISOFIX and three top-tether points for child seats. The Exceed is the one you want if you’re aiming to treat your rear-seat passengers right: it has heated rear outboard seats, rear directional air vents and two USB ports for charging - the ES and Aspire miss out on all that stuff.  

Boot space is 359L (VDA) for PHEV models, which is a step down from the 405 litres (VDA) for the non-hybrid models. There is extra hardware under the floor, and you don’t get a spare wheel in the PHEV models either - instead there’s a tyre repair kit. For context, we only just managed to fit all three CarsGuide hard suitcases (124L, 95L and 36L) in the boot of the PHEV version, while it was far less of an issue in the non-PHEV.

Oddly, no model comes with a power tailgate. 

The 2022 Eclipse Cross PHEV line-up is expensive compared to the petrol-turbo models.

The ES AWD has a list price (all prices MSRP, before on-road costs) of $46,490, while the mid-spec Aspire costs $49,990 and the top-end Exceed lists at $53,990. 

I know they’re not like-for-like in every instance - the ES and Aspire petrol-turbo models are 2WD, not AWD, for example, and there are some specification differences, too - but the price jump from each respective non-PHEV version is $15,500 (ES), $14,250 (Aspire) and $12,500 (Exceed).

Yikes.

You’d really, really have to want the EV driving experience to justify that additional expenditure, right?

Here’s a rundown of the specifications across the three PHEV grades.

Standard for the $46,490 ES grade are 18-inch alloy wheels, LED daytime running lights, halogen headlights, keyless entry and push-button start, cloth interior trim, manual front seat adjustment, an 8.0-inch touchscreen media system with Apple CarPlay and Android auto, a reversing camera, a four speaker stereo, digital radio and a rear cargo blind.

Step up to the $49,990 Aspire and you score LED headlights and fog lights, a lower body kit, heated front seats, faux-leather and microsuede trim, auto wipers, adaptive cruise control, an eight-speaker stereo, surround view camera, front and rear parking sensors, and an array of safety equipment that we’ll cover off in the safety section.

Choosing the range-topping $53,990 Exceed model nets you leather seat trim, a heated steering wheel, a head-up display - making it the only grade with a digital speedo! - as well as sat nav, a dual pane sunroof, and a black headliner in the cabin.

The Aion UT has a front-mounted electric motor producing 150kW/210Nm. That’s plenty punchy for any hatchback at this price, and I like the way the brand hasn’t messed around with a sub-100kW motor in the base variant to push prospects towards the top-spec car.

It’s more powerful than all of its closest rivals and at the time of writing you’ll have to spend four to six thousand dollars more to get into something equivalent from BYD, Chery, Jaecoo, Leapmotor or MG.

It even has a claimed 0-100km/h sprint time as low as 7.3 seconds.

The plug-in hybrid version runs a non-turbocharged 2.4-litre Atkinson cycle petrol engine producing just 94kW and 199Nm.

Meagre outputs, but the petrol unit is backed by two electric motors - the front motor has outputs of 60kW/137Nm, while the rear motor produces 70kW/195Nm. It’s all controlled by a single-speed transmission.

There is no ‘combined power output’ figure, but there is a 13.8kWh lithium-ion battery pack as part of the equation as well.

The engine can power the battery pack in series hybrid driving mode, so if you want to top up the batteries before you get to a city, you can. And there is regenerative braking, of course. More on recharging in the next section.

The Aion UT has a 60kWh lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery pack, which grants it a WLTP-certified 430km of driving range.

That’s more than its closest rivals, like the entry-level Ora Standard Range (310km), BYD Dolphin Essential (410km) or BYD Atto 2 (345km).

Claimed efficiency is 16.4kWh/100km and the car I tested returned a consumption of 14.0kWh/100km over a 130km route of mixed conditions, which isn’t bad at all.

Charging speeds are less impressive, but realistically appropriate for the relatively small battery. The peak DC charging capacity of 87kW means a charge time which the brand quotes at 24 minutes, but this is from 30-80 per cent. Expect closer to 40 minutes for a 10-80 per cent charge.

AC charging is decent, at 11kW. This should have you charging from 10-80 per cent between four and five hours.

The Eclipse Cross PHEV has an official combined cycle fuel consumption figure of 1.9L/100km. That’s astounding, really, but you need to realise that the test calculation is only for the first 100 kays - there’s a really good chance your real-world consumption will be a lot higher, as you can only deplete the battery charge once before calling on the engine (and your petrol tank) to juice it back up.

Electric driving range is stated at 55km based on NEDC cycle testing, while the WLTP rating is a more realistic 45km. In our testing we fell between the two during our “fully charged” 100km run, in which the electric charge initially ran for 50km. But, over the 100km run, the dashboard info screen said the car used “82 per cent” electric driving, while somehow also showing 3.9L/100km for petrol consumption.

I did the numbers at the fuel filler, and the actual return was 4.5L/100km. That’s okay, but not nearly as spectacular as you might hope, and I’ve seen very close in a RAV4 hybrid - which in most instances is cheaper than the Eclipse Cross despite being bigger and, frankly, a lot better.

I also ran the car for a further 100 kays without plugging in, just to see what the ‘worst case scenario’ might be - and it wasn’t too bad, with the fuel consumption jumping to a real-world return of 5.5L/100km. But again, that’s worse than you’ll likely get with a RAV4…

When it comes to charging/recharging, there is available AC charging using a Type 2 plug that can fully recharge the battery in as little as 3.5 hours, according to the brand. DC fast charging with a CHAdeMO plug should fill from zero to 80 per cent in 25 minutes. Maximum charge input is 3.6kW.

Like me, you’ll want to do the maths to see what is going to be the most economical way to run your car - aside from just plugging it in at the office and hoping nobody notices.

A standard 10-amp household plug - which should take about seven hours to replenish the batteries - could cost as little as $1.88 to get back your circa-50km EV range - that’s based on overnight charging, off-peak, on an average 13.6c/kWh electricity price. Of course, if you’re considering a PHEV, you might have a solar array and the electricity could well be free. Good for you.

But remember, there’s more to it than just the electricity costs - you need to also consider the additional purchase budget required just to get into the PHEV model over a regular Eclipse Cross. 

The drive experience can be where a lot of Chinese cars fall down but I walked away less frustrated by the Aion UT.

That’s not to say it will behave as you might expect a low-slung hatchback to. The suspension, for example, is extremely soft as it maintains its original Chinese-market state-of-tune.

This makes the car waft over imperfections on city roads. And in that sense it offers supreme ride comfort in the scenarios it was designed for. However, at the extremes, like some speed bumps, or particularly deep pot holes there can be a surprisingly violent re-bound sending a thud through the cabin.

The other trade-off for soft suspension is less body control. I was surprised to find that the Aion UT holds it together mostly well on a flat country B-road, but when undulations and big dips introduce themselves, the soft suspension can be too slow to react, making the car lose confidence in higher-speed open road scenarios we’re more used to in Australia.

The steering, like many electric cars in this category, is relatively heavily electrically assisted. This makes it light and easy to adjust at low speeds for easy park and maneuverability in the confines of a city. It loses a little bit of road-feel at higher speeds but the Aion UT’s steering is far from the least connected I’ve experienced recently.

One thing it can’t be criticised for is a lack of power. With 150kW instantaneously available the Aion UT has some serious poke and while the ChaoYang tyre package is tuned more for efficiency than grip, it’s again not one of the worst I’ve driven with.

One thing which helps the whole experience along is this car’s hatchback layout. With the weight of the battery low and squat and the wheels all the way out to the edges of the frame, the Aion UT inherently handles decently compared to an electric crossover or small SUV.

Like all Chinese cars, the UT has a host of occasionally frustrating driver aids, which you can read about in the Safety section below. While I was inclined to turn some of the features off after testing them, the alerts are relatively quiet and non-invasive.

Is the UT any good to drive? It’s not bad for the segment, I was largely pleased with how it handled and the power on offer, and while it still has its annoyances, they’re not big deal-breakers. 

The MG4 rear-drive is a better allrounder, while the GWM Ora isn’t as good. I’d say it’s on par with the BYD Dolphin, but they excel in different areas. The Dolphin's a bit sharper in terms of handling but the Aion UT is more comfortable.

If you’re after that electric car thrill of near-silent, almost mind-blowing acceleration, the Eclipse Cross mightn’t be the right car for you

But if swift progress and the buzz you get from taking off from the traffic lights without any hesitation at all is more your thing, it could be great for you. And if you’re not quite ready to go “full EV”, then it’s probably something you’re considering.

The EV driving mode is the best driving mode in this car. You can run it just on the petrol engine to ensure you save your battery range, and you might choose to do that when you’re driving on the freeway and know you’re approaching an urban area where the EV goodness will be better used. Or you could have it so it's using battery and petrol power, and that’s where you’ll get maximum combined performance.

But running the car in the default, EV-prioritised mode means you will make the best of this powertrain's strengths, because - for the fifty odd kays you’ll get out of the battery - it’s pretty good.

It’s also impressive the way this powertrain dips between petrol engine, battery pack or both at higher speeds. When the battery range had depleted on my test drive, the engine kicked in almost imperceptibly, working to power the car and also generate more electricity for the battery pack. It then dipped out of petrol, back to battery, and so on and so forth, multiple times during my drive. 

The best thing about the way it did so was that it was smooth. There is barely any vibration from the petrol engine, the transmission doesn’t have any gears to fumble with, and overall the refinement is really good.

There are drive modes - Eco, Normal, Snow, Gravel and Tarmac - and in my test I kept to Normal. I did fiddle with the regenerative braking reactiveness, though, using the paddleshifters to dial up or down the aggressiveness of the energy recoup system. It doesn’t feel as aggressive as some pure electric cars, but thankfully it has a decent pedal feel and progression when you apply the brakes yourself. 

The steering is light and lacks feel, and doesn’t offer that much engagement or involvement. That might matter to you if you’re like me. I wish it was more fun. But at least it’s easy to park.

While the suspension is fine and comfortable on the highway, it can feel wooden and the ride is quite lumpy at low speeds. It never really feels all that well resolved for urban driving, which is a bit of a downer considering that’s likely where a car like this will spend most of its time

The tune of the suspension - being a bit firm at lower pace - surprisingly doesn’t have any payoff when it comes to cornering, as it lacks a bit of body control, shifting its weight side to side. 

All in all it is a decent plug-in hybrid offering – and will be perfectly suitable to someone who wants some EV driving as a part of their lifestyle. It’s just a matter of doing the maths as to whether it will work for you.

All Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross models have been awarded a five-star ANCAP crash test safety rating based on 2017 testing for the pre-facelift model. 

The range has increasing levels of safety technology the more you spend, but all variants have forward autonomous emergency braking (AEB) with forward collision warning (operates between 5km/h and 80km/h) and the AEB includes pedestrian detection (between 15km/h and 140km/h). 

Standard on all grades is a reversing camera, rear parking sensors, seven airbags (dual front, driver’s knee, front side, side curtain for both rows), active Yaw control, stability control, and anti-lock brakes (ABS) with brake force distribution. Lane departure warning is standard too.

Spend up on the Aspire for adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, and front parking sensors. From Aspire up to Exceed, there’s the addition of the brand’s Ultrasonic Misacceleration Mitigation System, which can dull throttle response to prevent potential low speed collisions.

No speed sign recognition is available, and therefore no smart cruise control either. Plus there is no lane centring system fitted either, and nor is there a driver attention monitoring system, so it’s falling behind on the tech front.

The Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross is built in Japan.

GAC covers this electric hatch with an eight-year and unlimited kilometre warranty, while the brand’s “magazine battery 2.0” is covered by a separate eight-year and 200,000km warranty. Five years of roadside assistance is included.

The Aion UT needs to be serviced once a year or 15,000km. The service price schedule extends all the way out to 240,000km with yearly visits costing between $199 and $640 but for the life of the warranty the average yearly cost comes in at $352.

There are currently 19 GAC dealers in Australia, confined mainly to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane with a single store in Perth and an outlier in Cairns. No representation yet in Tassie, Canberra, the Northern Territory or SA.

There’s a huge 10 year/200,000 kilometre warranty on offer - but it’s valid if you maintain your car with Mitsubishi’s dedicated dealer service network over the 10 years/200,000km timeline, or else you get a five-year/100,000km plan.

But while the rest of the car will be covered by that decade-long warranty if you service it with Mitsubishi, the battery is only covered for eight years/160,000km, no matter where you have the car serviced.

Maintenance is due every 12 months/15,000km. But just a note - the more complex powertrain means higher service costs than the regular turbo-petrol versions. The annual fees are: $299, $399, $299, $399, $299, $799, $299, $799, $399, $799; so an average cost of $339 for the first five years, or $558.90 per visit over 10 years/150,000kn. 

Included for customers who service their car with the brand is four years of roadside assist.

Do you have questions over reliability, issues, concerns, recalls, automatic transmission problems, or anything else of that ilk? Check out our Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross problems page.