New Hyundai Tucson vs Vauxhall Grandland X vs Volvo XC40: costs

Buying and owning

Costs, equipment, reliability, safety and security

All three are available with sizeable discounts, but it’s the Grandland X that’s the cheapest if you’re buying outright – remarkable when you consider that you’re getting the latest plug-in hybrid tech with it.

On PCP finance, there isn’t much in it; the Tucson and XC40 require payments of £361 per month (assuming a four-year term with a £3500 deposit and a limit of 8000 miles per year), while the Grandland X is slightly higher.

Then again, the Grandland X should be the cheapest to fuel. It returned an impressive 40.8mpg with the battery fully drained (versus the Tucson’s 36.1mpg and the XC40’s 32.6mpg), so, assuming you’re doing regular 40-mile journeys and you’re starting with a full battery each time, you’ll spend just £1863 on petrol and £1663 on electricity over three years. In that time, the Tucson will cost you £1429 more in fuel and the XC40 an extra £1961.

So, although the Grandland X is predicted to shed value faster than the others, when you factor in all the other costs faced by private cash buyers, it will be the cheapest to own over three years, with the Tucson being around £1000 more and the XC40 costing another £500 on top of that.

The Grandland X makes just as much sense as a company car. With CO2 emissions of just 31g/km and that official 34-mile electric range, it attracts benefit-in-kind tax at a rate of just 11% (from April), as opposed to 30% for the Tucson and 36% for the XC40. That means, if you’re in the 40% tax bracket, you’ll pay just £119 per month through to April 2022 for a Grandland X, versus £342 for the Tucson and £414 for the XC40.

Replenishing the Grandland X’s battery from empty to full takes around 1hr 45min via a typical home wallbox, if you add the optional 7.4kW on-board charger (£500); otherwise it’s 3hr 30min via a three-pin plug. With the Tucson and XC40, there’s no need to plug them in, of course; you just fill up at the pumps and go.

None of our contenders is poorly equipped; they all come with climate control, adjustable lumbar support and LED headlights, with the Tucson adding heated seats and keyless entry. All get automatic emergency braking and lane-keeping assistance, while the Tucson also comes with blindspot monitoring (the regular kind, not the camera-based version).

The Tucson has yet to be tested by Euro NCAP, but both the Grandland X and XC40 received a full five-star safety rating. The XC40 does a slightly better job of protecting the chests of occupants in frontal collisions, though.

The Tucson is too new to have featured in the latest What Car? Reliability Survey, but the XC40 was one of the most dependable family SUVs and the Grandland X was one of the least. Hyundai was an impressive sixth out of 31 manufacturers – well above Volvo (16th) and Vauxhall (27th).

Used alternative

2020 BMW X1 xDrive25e

For around the same price as any of the three new cars featured here, you could get a nearly new example of BMW’s classy X1 family SUV in desirable plug-in hybrid guise. The xDrive25e is swift, good to drive and well equipped, and officially it can cover up to 31 miles on electric power alone, so if it fits into your lifestyle, it could also be surprisingly cheap to run.

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