I have a budget of ₹50 lakh and am considering options like the Toyota Fortuner, Mahindra XEV 9E, and XUV7XO. While I appreciate the Fortuner’s reliability, it feels outdated compared to newer competitors. I am also inclined towards the newer Mahindra models, but my past service experience with Mahindra and Tata makes me hesitant.

Autocar India

•2d

We think you are overcomplicating this slightly, so let us simplify it. Your usage pattern is actually very clear: very low city running, occasional long road trips, and you want this to likely be your last car. That changes the answer completely.A pure EV can absolutely handle your weekly 80 km city usage with ease, but if you already know that your occasional road trips with two dogs will create charging anxiety or force overly rigid planning, then that emotional friction matters. A “last car” should make life easier, not add a layer of planning every time you head out.A plug in hybrid sounds perfect on paper because yes, it is effectively both an EV and a hybrid. But the trade off is exactly what you suspect: more complexity, higher cost and right now, very little real choice in India. Mainstream plug in hybrids are still some distance away, and even when they arrive, expect them to be expensive. Unless you are happy waiting a few years, we would not base your decision around future promises.Which brings us to the practical answer: buy a strong hybrid and stop feeling guilty about using it in the city. A good strong hybrid will do a surprising amount of low speed urban driving in EV mode anyway, so you are not “wasting” fuel in the way a conventional petrol would. More importantly, it completely solves the road trip question without asking you to retain an ageing 2007 Swift purely as backup.Keeping the Swift only for occasional road trips while buying an EV for 80 km a week feels like an inefficient two car solution unless you have a sentimental reason to keep it.If we were in your shoes, we would buy something like a Toyota Hyryder or Innova Hycross hybrid and enjoy the simplicity.

Maruti Suzuki Swift

Toyota Urban Cruiser Hyryder

Toyota Innova HyCross

Autocar India

•19h

With 50,000km covered in 3 years, the smarter move is to keep your Audi A4 for another couple of years unless you clearly need a taller car for rough roads or easier entry. At this age and mileage, a well-serviced and carefully driven A4 still has plenty of life. It is quiet and smooth on highways, and you avoid another big hit in value right now.The other issue is that, on a budget of Rs 60-65 lakh, your only available SUV options from the German luxury brands are compact SUVs like the BMW X1, Audi Q3 and Mercedes-Benz GLA, which will feel like a downgrade from your A4 in terms of size and space. You will have to up your budget by at least Rs 10 lakh to move into the next segment of luxury SUVs. Better alternatives, if you don't mind a non-luxury badge, are the Skoda Kodiaq and Volkswagen Tayron. They offer similar quality levels to their more luxurious counterparts, as well as equitable levels of comfort and refinement. They even use the same EA888 2.0-litre petrol engine as your A4. What's more, for much less money, you get far more space and an even longer list of features. You sacrifice some snob value, but you get a more rounded product.

Audi A4

BMW X1

Audi Q3

Skoda Kodiaq

Autocar India

•18h

Unfortunately, no. The ADAS suite cannot simply be activated on the older 2025 Skoda Kodiaq via a software update alone, because it does not have all the required hardware for the system to function.While modern cars are increasingly software-defined, ADAS is not just a case of unlocking dormant code. It relies on a combination of sensors, cameras, radar modules, control units and the correct electronic architecture working together. If the full hardware stack is not present from the factory, a software update cannot magically add those capabilities.So if your understanding was that all 2025 Kodiaqs were physically ADAS-ready and only awaiting activation, that is unfortunately not the case.

Skoda Kodiaq