2017 Honda CR-V vs Mitsubishi Outlander

What's the difference?

Honda’s once-ground breaking medium sized SUV enters its fifth generation, and will be a pivotal car for the venerable but vulnerable carmaker that’s slowly but surely lagging behind its key Japanese and Korean rivals - and the Chinese are coming, as well.

The fifth generation CR-V has come along way since its humble origins back in 1997. It does, however, have to line-up against a vastly wider arrange of contenders in an incredibly competitive space that not only includes its old arch rival, the Toyota RAV4, but category leaders like Mazda's CX-5, and new players like the Peugeot 5008 and the Haval H7.

Amidst its line-up of five-seaters is the sole seven-seat offering, known as the VTi-L, which sits just one place shy of the top spot in the CR-V pecking order. Does the updated CR-V in seven-seat mode tick all the boxes? Let's find out.

Mitsubishi's plug-in hybrid Outlander is officially the best-selling electric vehicle in Australia. Though to be fair, that's like saying Blockbuster is the country's best-performing video store. It doesn't mean much if nobody is noticing, and the Outlander PHEV isn't exactly flying off the shelves.

But that's no fault of the plug-in Outlander - it's sold more 120,000 units globally since its launch in 2014. It's just that Australia's taste for electric vehicles is lacklustre, and the absence of meaningful government support isn't helping. Or, in the words of Mitsubishi's own executives, "Sales in Australia are still in an infancy period…but we're hopeful."

MORE: Read the full Mitsubishi Outlander 2017 review

Since its launch in 2014, the hybrid Outlander has moved around 1650 units here (substantially less than the Prius, which managed almost that many last year alone, but a quirk of the official classification system ensures Mitsubishi's PHEV is classified as an EV rather than a hybrid), which is but a drop in the regular Outlander's petrol-powered ocean, with the conventional models selling more than eight times that number every single year.

But Mitsubishi is hoping this 2017 update will go some way to changing all that, adding a pure EV mode that will allow you to waft about town using nothing but power from the twin electric motors, and tweaking the acceleration and handling for when you're in the mood to burn some fossil fuels.

So, is that enough to attract buyers to the plug-in Outlander like moths to the flicker of an electric candle?