I recently drove the Outlander PHEV and I actually considering buying it because it's a pretty good deal here in Sweden , if you rent it. Probably $ 250 less each month when compared with diesel version if you include the cost of fuel .
Some comments / "facts ":
1. The engine starts under hard acceleration , probably because the battery can not supply enough power , or to conserve the battery. It's also a bit of a delay when the engine starts and revs up , that and 0-60 in the 11s represents no ev- grin.
2nd The engine starts even when it's cold , to warm up the cabin. And there is no EV mode to force it to use the battery only . But to be fair, we ran 4-5 miles in -10 C (14 F), and since the engine only starts when we accelerated hard. So it's probably not a big deal if you have the car pre-heated.
3rd It is a permanent 4WD car when using the battery , BUT , you must use a " 4WD" to force this when the car runs out of battery. This is probably because the gas engine can drive the car right away so they want to save gas in the state and not force it to charge the battery when it is not needed.
4th Not the prettiest car in the world , although slightly better in real life as in the pictures.
5th Electric range of 30 miles NEDC , I'm guessing more like 20-25 EPA / real life. A Swedish magazine did a test , winter, mostly city driving , 0C/32F or so, and they got about 25 miles with the AC off for the last 6 miles .
It's a good family car but lots of space, 4WD. Nice security features such as automatic emergency brakes
If anyone on the PHEV forum has a comment, then I welcome you!