Ford Kuga PHEV Review

Practicality and Boot Space

Cramming a battery and electric motor into a car which also has to house a petrol or diesel engine will usually mean compromises have to be made with interior space. But somehow Ford seems to have got away with it in the Kuga PHEV. 

In fact the Kuga is spacious enough to allow four or even five adults to get comfortable, with plenty of head and legroom all round. It’s certainly better than a Vauxhall Grandland X if you regularly need to transport anyone older or bigger than a lanky teenager.

The boot shrinks slightly in size compared to the petrol Kuga but it’s negligible in reality and still offers a decent amount of space with the seats up or down. There’s room for cups, phones and other paraphernalia around the seats too, although not quite as much as we’d like. A Hyundai Tucson, Peugeot 3008 or Kia Sportage PHEV all have bigger boots, though, so there are better options if luggage space is a real priority. The Renault Scenic E-Tech and Tesla Model Y are also more practical, and are well worth considering if you're open to the idea of a long-range electric car instead of a PHEV.  

Interior and Design

The Kuga's interior feels durable and comfortable, but it's also a very conventional place by the standards of more modern family SUVs. The materials and plastics are fine but also rather boring, and there's a lot of 'elephant-skin' plastic around the dash and doors. It does the job just fine, but there's no denying that the Kuga looks and feels drab compared with the slicker designs, plush materials and fancy ambient lighting tricks that you get in a lot of alternative family SUVs. 

Dashboard

On-board the Kuga is all typical modern Ford, with a Sync 3 touchscreen taking care of most of the tech including Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Ford has also decided to leave some of the major controls - like those for the air-con - as proper dials rather than touchscreen elements. That’s joined-up thinking: much easier to use on the move. Even the cheapest Kuga PHEV gets a snazzy digital driver's readout, as well as the touchscreen system.

Technology and Equipment

Although the Ford has all the functionality that you want in its touchscreen system, the screen itself is slow to respond and has rather grainy graphics, so it does feel old compared to the newer systems that feature in most rivals. Voice control is standard but very hit-and-miss, and there's just generally a sense of the Kuga's interior design and infotainment system being a bit 'last decade' compared with the systems you find in a lot of more modern electric cars. Adding the £550 Technology Pack adds adaptive LED headlights and a head-up display, which is a very reasonable price for this sort of kit - and worth doing, especially if you do a lot of miles or often drive at night. ​

Like most plug-in cars, the Kuga uses an app which allows owners to turn on the heating (or cooling) remotely so the car uses mains power rather than battery to get the Kuga to a comfortable temperature. 

Equipment is very good on the Kuga. You can only get the PHEV with ST Line Edition, ST Line X Edition or Vignale, and there are also a couple of special trims - Black Package Edition and the range-topping Graphite Tech Edition - available as run-out models ahead of this model of the Kuga being replaced by the 2024 facelift. Even the cheapest ST Line Edition comes with heated, power-fold side mirrors, electrically adjusted front seats, black roof rails, 18-inch alloy wheels, the touchscreen system that we mentioned and more. ST Line X ups the style kit with 19-inch alloy wheels, handsfree bootlid control and a panoramic sunroof, and Vignale specialises in a luxury finish thanks to keyless entry, heated seats in the rear as well as the front, leather upholstery and reversing camera. Black Package Edition costs the same as Vignale but focuses more on sporty looks, while the Graphite Tech Edition costs even more than the Vignale but gets everything thrown in, including the Tech Pack and Driver Assistance Pack.

Safety

According to the independent crash test experts at EuroNCAP, the Ford Kuga is one of the safest cars on the road. It was awarded a full five-star rating thanks to a full list of crash-preventing safety systems, airbags and a strong shell. Its score of 92% for adult occupant protection compares to 84% for the Vauxhall Grandland X for example, although it is marginally beaten by some rivals such as the Toyota Rav4 (93%) and DS3 Crossback (96%). 

Standard kit includes driver aids including lane-keep, adaptive cruise and crash-mitigation emergency braking. There’s also the option of a £1,100 ‘Driver Assistance Pack’ that adds kit like traffic jam assist, blind-spot monitoring, traffic sign recognition and loads of cameras to make parking and manoeuvring easier and scrape-free. That's fine, but it's worth noting that a lot of rivals have blind spot and traffic sign recognition as standard.