These plug-in hybrid SUVs combine great luxury with potentially low running costs. But when choosing one to live with, which should you come right back to?

Photography: Max Edleston

Range Rover Sport P440e Dynamic SE

List price £92,980

Target Price £92,980

Our reigning Luxury Car of the Year is cosseting to drive and lovely inside, plus it has a long official electric range. It’ll have to work hard to justify its considerably higher price, though

NEW

Lexus RX 450h+ Takumi

List price £81,600

Target Price £80,995

Lexus’s first plug-in hybrid – the NX – was so good that we named it our 2023 Plug-in Hybrid of the Year. The same set-up now powers the latest iteration of the larger RX – so, can lightning strike twice?

If you want to travel from London to Sydney, £10,000 is pretty much the difference between booking a Singapore Airlines suite or sitting in economy, where the person in front will probably recline their seat into your knees and the one beside you will steal your armrest. Now, imagine that you could have a first class ticket for the price of an economy one. Seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? If that’s the case, this test shouldn’t take too long, right? After all, the new Lexus RX 450h+ in rangetopping Takumi trim costs that much less to buy than the rival Range Rover Sport P440e in midspec Dynamic SE guise.

At first glance, it really is quite difficult to figure out why there’s such a large gulf between the list prices of these two plug-in hybrid (PHEV) SUVs; they both have posh badges, are a similar size and can drive solely on electricity to reduce your fuel and tax bills.

Are you paying thousands extra simply for a Range Rover badge? Or does the British car better its Japanese rival in enough tangible ways to justify its higher price? That’s what we aim to find out.

DRIVING

Performance, ride, handling, refinement

It’s been said that, from an aerodynamic point of view, bees shouldn’t be able to fly, but no one has told them, so they do anyway. In much the same way, it’s improbable that anything as big and heavy as our contenders can be so quick. In our tests, the RX and Range Rover blasted from 0-60mph in 6.5sec and 6.1sec respectively, which means they’re as rapid as many hot hatches.

That pace is partly down to their electric motors giving instantaneous power off the line, and even in fully electric (EV) mode they can cruise at motorway speeds with ease. However, the Range Rover’s larger battery (31.8kWh versus 18.1kWh) means it can run in that mode for longer. In our real-world tests, it covered 50 miles before its battery was depleted, versus 33 miles in the RX.