Mitsubishi ASX Second Generation Review: A Renault Captur in Disguise with Mixed Reactions from Fans

When the first-generation Mitsubishi ASX went into a well-deserved retirement last year after a respectable twelve years and perhaps a record four upgrades, it was still a relatively popular car. It was already known then that Mitsubishi would sell rebranded Renaults in Europe. The second generation ASX is the first such model – it’s a Renault Captur with a new “nose” and a few other details.

Fans of the Mitsubishi brand are not exactly happy with this move, but the “Mitsunaut”, as I have privately renamed it, may not be a bad car. After all, the Renault Captur has really done well in terms of design and driving, so why should there be anything wrong with selling more of it? I am trying to find an answer to that after almost a thousand kilometers.

However, there are a few proverbial elephants in the kitchen. For example, the design – the body did not only change the logos, but also the appearance of the front mask. The problem is that only the mask has changed seriously – and the Renault one, together with the lights and the cutout in the hood for the logo, makes sense. The result of trying to be as different as possible, probably combined with the impossibility of having, for example, a hood without a cut-out, is quite strange and the new mask does not suit the car.

Similarly, it’s at the back where the reversing camera has remained in the place of the Renault diamond, but instead of being neatly hidden in its center there is a rather large plastic console, three diamonds nowhere and a large inscription that reveals that it is a Mitsubishi. However, the rest of the car is unchanged, so it doesn’t look so bad after all.

The interior is a similar song – only the logo on the steering wheel and some writing here and there in the infotainment have changed. The rest is pure Renault – and that’s a good thing, because the French have really succeeded in the Clio/Captur duo. In terms of ergonomics, I have nothing to complain about, which, of course, is mainly helped by the classic gear selector and the third lever under the steering wheel, which controls the radio.

The only thing I can fault about the seats with pleasant upholstery is the slightly harder filling, the spaciousness behind the wheel is basically nothing, and I can fit “by myself”; close, but we’re still sitting in an urban crossover, so everything’s fine. The trunk is the same – just right for this class and the fact that we are sitting in a car with a plug-in hybrid drive. (There is a fuel tank under the trunk floor, the traction battery found a place under the rear seats.)

Both displays have nice graphics, fine resolution and excellent sharpness, and the systems are intuitive enough so that you don’t have to click through several menus for every detail. In addition, for example, monitoring the lines on the road has its own button, separate from active lane guidance, which is switched on on the steering wheel. Likewise, the brightness of both displays is controlled by a physical button; these are all huge pluses for me in today’s “display age”.

A minor drawback is that the instrument panel display modes are tightly linked to individual driving modes, so the large circle in the middle is only available in Sport mode. But even in it, you can drive on electricity, or on the contrary, turn on the E-Save mode, which keeps the battery at its current state, and you can also display a map in the instrument panel. And in all three modes, you can set the color of the ambient lighting, which is copied by the colors in the displays.

Otherwise, there are no big differences in the driving modes, the chassis is still the same; if I didn’t know it wasn’t, I’d say it’s a bit stiffer than the plug-in hybrid captur, but that might just be the sidewall height of the tires. Only in Sport does the gas pedal have a different, sharper mapping than in the standard My Sense, and in Pure you of course only drive on electricity.

However, the electric motor has enough power that even in normal mode I can drive around town exclusively on electricity and not be a drag on traffic, without having to fiddle with the modes. Since I had a lot of kilometers ahead of me on the weekend, I tried to drive around Prague only on electricity, turn on the internal combustion engine only when driving more than 60 km/h, and charge as much as possible.

After 172 kilometres, I still have an almost full tank of petrol and the car shows a consumption of 2 l/100 km + 14.6 kWh/100 km. That way, even in the real world, I can fit within the fifty-gram CO2 emissions limit, which is a requirement for the allocation of “electric vehicle” license plates. The overall average for 966 kilometers is 5.7 l/100 km + 7.9 kWh/100 km, given by long weekend drives.

However, I have one interesting thing about the return trip from Havířov to Prague. The ASX has an E-Nav mode for the most efficient use of battery power on a longer route if you have it set in native navigation. It works better than expected – when I set off on a 372 km route, the display showed a range of 300 km and I expected to have to refuel on the way. However, I reached the destination without stopping for fuel and with about 80 km remaining. There was no big difference in driving style before and during this trip.

As with most of the rest of the car, it is difficult to have reservations about the drivetrain. Renault’s E-Tech system primarily drives the car with electricity, so there is always enough torque for starts, the combustion engine is only connected when more power is required, and the whole thing – despite the toothed clutch and the absence of synchronization rings in the so-called multi-mode transmission – works smoothly and seamlessly.

It’s just a shame about the relatively weak 3.7kW on-board charger, with a seven-kilowatt one, connecting for half an hour while you go shopping would be less “useless”. Also, the B mode on the transmission selector could have more braking power, thus recuperating more energy.

In conclusion, I have to dwell on the price, which – we won’t beat around the bush – is high. In the tested highest Instyle equipment, the plug-in hybrid costs a million crowns without white paint with a black roof for 25 thousand and a charging cable for wall boxes for nine.

You can also get it in the cheaper Intense+ for 910,000, but in addition to other, not so useful equipment, the excellent Mi-Pilot semi-autonomous driving system will also be missing there. And with the exception of the color and accessories such as the exact cable or even the towing device, there are no extra charges at Mitsubishi, the equipment is exactly given.

This in itself could be understood, cars are generally expensive these days, and plug-in hybrids even more so because of their technology, but except for the badges, an identical Renault Captur, equipped with extras roughly at the level of the ASX in the Instyle version, including semi-autonomous driving, will cost around 930 thousand. The remaining seventy are made up of leather seats and a sunroof at Mitsubishi, which Renault does not currently offer in the plug-in hybrid Captur.