• Spacious and well-packaged
• Large boot with a low loading lip
• Wide, airy cabin

How much space is there?

Wide, cleverly-packaged and on the larger side for a five-seater SUV, the Suzuki Across is extremely practical. A relatively low window line helps make it feel airy and light, and in the back there’s space for three adults thanks to the wide body.

This is helped by the unobtrusive central tunnel. The car has four-wheel drive but, because the rear axle is powered by an electric motor rather than the engine, there’s no need to carve swathes out of the body for a driveshaft. The rear seats sit quite high, though, due to the packaging for the battery.

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This means the Suzuki Across feels rather roomier than a SEAT Ateca or Skoda Karoq in both the front and back. Rear passengers enjoy a comfortably reclined position, but the seat backs can latch in a more upright position if you want a boxier boot shape.

Boot space and storage

There’s a generous 520 litres, or 1,630 litres with the seats folded, so the impact of the plug-in hardware isn’t significant. Unlike many plug-in hybrid SUVs, there’s room to hide the charging cables under the boot floor.

The boot is electrically operated and takes an eternity to open and close. We found we could click the close button, get into the driver’s seat, belt up, start up and be ready to go by the time it closes. This feels like a lifetime when you’re waiting for it to open.

You’ll find both a 12-volt power supply and an AC power supply in the boot, ideal for charging all kinds of gadgets. Although it’s quite a lift up to the boot, there’s an almost non-existent loading lip.

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Loading larger items reveals the one weakness compared to rivals; the Suzuki Across seats don’t have a through-loading facility and are a fixed 60:40 split, meaning you lose one ‘outside’ seat to carry longer objects..

Is it easy to park?

Suzuki includes a reversing camera and full parking sensors on the Across. It’s also easy to see out of and, at less than 4.7m long, it fits into most spaces easily.

Safety

• Extensive safety equipment
• Five-star Euro NCAP safety rating shared with RAV4
• Adaptive cruise control and lane keeping

Even though it’s badged as a Suzuki, the Across comes with Toyota’s suite of driver assistance technology. Like the RAV4, it features a front-mounted radar and a forward-facing camera in the windscreen, which send data to its autonomous emergency braking, adaptive cruise control and traffic sign recognition systems.

The comprehensive specification also includes lane departure alert, automatic high beam, a blindspot monitor and rear cross traffic alert. You also get a pair of Isofix points on the rear bench. However, the Peugeot 3008 offers a little more flexibility here with an additional Isofix point in the front passenger seat.

Unsurprisingly, the safety ratings and crash test results from Euro NCAP are identical to the RAV4, with a solid five-star rating. However, it’s worth noting that rating dates to 2019 – and Euro NCAP has since tightened up its test protocols. As such, a newer five-star family SUV, such as the Mazda CX-60, could fare better in a crash.