Ever since Mitsubishi Motors formed a joint venture with Hindustan Motors in 1998, the Japanese automaker has been through some cheerful as well as tragic times. Twenty-one years down the road, it still hasn’t managed to become a force to be reckoned with on our shores. The carmaker has just two models in its Indian stable – the Outlander and the Pajero Sport. While the latter has been with us for a while now, the former received an official price tag of Rs 31.95 lakh (ex-showroom) in August 2018.

It has been more than a year now, and there are a couple of developments which deserve highlighting. The first of them is regarding the infotainment system. The SUV has ditched the old-school 6.1-inch system in favour of a 7.0-inch unit which, apart from featuring an in-built navigation system and gets a feed from a rear-view camera, has support for Android Auto as well. Mated to it is a Rockford sound system which includes two tweeters, four speakers, one woofer and a 710W amplifier.

Logic dictates that with the new system in place and the ever-increasing input costs would have forced Mitsubishi Motors India to hike the asking price. No, that has not happened. Surprisingly, the sticker price has come down considerably. The Outlander now costs Rs 26.93 lakh before taxes. Simple subtraction reveals a welcome and massive deficit of Rs 5.02 lakh. Compared to its direct rival in India, the petrol-powered Honda CR-V, the Outlander costs Rs 1.34 lakh less.

Some might correctly argue that the CR-V is more feature-rich and has Honda’s robust network to back it up. However, they cannot negate the facts that the Outlander can seat seven (petrol CR-V comes with a five-seat layout), has a bigger and more powerful engine (2.4-litre with 165bhp/222Nm against 2.0-litre with 152bhp/189Nm), is longer and taller and has the added advantage of a four-wheel-drive system. Honestly, if you want a petrol-powered SUV in the same range, the Outlander has now become a must-consider. What do you guys think?