AS FAR AS battlegrounds go, the mid-size SUV segment is akin to the Battle of Helm’s Deep from The Lord of the Rings. Combatants stretch across the landscape as far as the eye can see, and while some are virtuous and noble warriors, the real difference is, unlike Tolkien’s fictional good-versus-evil clash, the fighters in this story are all in it for themselves.
The stakes are high for all of them, for the prize is dominance of Australia’s richest vehicular segment in terms of sales volume. In 2022, SUV sales accounted for 53.1 percent of the total Australian new-car market. Of that gargantuan slice of the pie (can it really be called a slice when it’s now more than half the damn thing?), the mid-size SUV market accounted for 216,151 sales – or 37 percent of all SUV sales – and more than all passenger-car sales combined.
Still need proof of their popularity? The Toyota RAV4, despite being pummelled non-stop by supply constraints, ranked third for outright sales last year, while the Mazda CX-5 lurked not far behind it in fifth position. Speaking of which, the Mazda also came in ahead of the Toyota Corolla (which placed sixth for 2022) – it wasn’t too long ago that the popularity of Toyota’s modest small car was considered unassailable, but in 2022 it was trounced by a mid-rank Mazda.
No surprises, then, that there’s a RAV4 and a CX-5 in our little battle royale – the former in crowd-pleasing hybrid form, the latter with a hard-hitting turbo 2.5 under the bonnet. Both are the Goliaths that the rest of the field will be looking to strike down, and there are six others who’ve got the RAV4 and CX-5 in their crosshairs. Chief among these is Nissan’s new-generation T33 X-Trail. A new broom sweeps best, as they say, but the X-Trail isn’t really as box-fresh as you’d think… it’s just late to the party, having launched as the Nissan Rogue in the USA back in 2020 but cruelly delayed from an Australian launch until late last year.
Mitsubishi’s Outlander shares its platform, engine and other core components with the new X-Trail, but it beat its Nissan cousin to the Aussie market by more than a year. In that time the Outlander has cleaved an 11 percent slice of the segment for itself, its chunky SUV styling, appealing pricing and seven-seat capability resonating with local buyers.
The Subaru Forester is another Japanese entrant that trades heavily on blocky aesthetics and the promise of off-road competence, though it was one of the SUVs most affected by supply shortages last year. quick glance at how many late-model Foresters are getting around should tell anyone that Subaru’s mid-size SUV knows how to appeal to the audience.
A new broom sweeps best, as they say, but the X-Trail isn’t really as box-fresh as you’d think…
Like the Nissan and Mitsubishi, Kia’s Sportage and Hyundai’s Tucson are twins under the skin. Does that mean they’re interchangeable? We’re throwing the diesel version of the former and the turbo-petrol version of the other into the ring to see which one could rise to the top.
And lobbing in as something of a wildcard entrant – as the only contender not to clock five-figure sales in 2022, if hardly a sales minnow when the seven-seater Tiguan Allspace is factored in – is the Volkswagen Tiguan. Available to us only in circa-$60K 162TSI R-Line form for this test, it does pose a couple of intriguing questions: to what lengths does the VW go to justify its price premium; and, with the body of a shopping cart but the heart of a hot hatch in this spec, how much of a gap exists between the sporty-ish Tiguan (it’s no Tiguan R) and the rest of the pack on demanding roads.
Keen market-watchers will notice some omissions. For one, where are the Chinese entrants like the MG HS or Haval H6? Or how about some French metal? Or maybe Honda’s CR-V?
There are 21 distinct models in the mainstream mid-size SUV segment, and we’ve simply attempted to
