With production and deliveries due to start in the second half of 2020, Peugeot has now released a full gallery of images for its luxury passenger van, the e-Traveller. How close is the new e-Traveller to its diesel-powered predecessor and how much DNA does it share with the e-Expert van? WhichEV has included a side-by-side of the cabins below, so you can judge for yourself. So will it be a good choice for large families, businesses with important clients or professional taxi drivers who need to move parties?
Whether you're working as a taxi driver or ferrying important guests around, it's important for an eight-seat transport to offer comfort, a good feature set, decent battery distance and a fast re-charge option for busy days. Likewise, if you have a big family and want to travel together, comfort on any kind of journey will be at a premium.
Your first choice is size. It comes in 4.95m and 5.3m variants and, at 1.9 metres high, it should get into the majority of car parks. With eight people on board, you can store 1,500 litres of luggage. That increases to 3,000 litres with five people or a whopping 4,900 litres if you lose the seats in rows two and three. Key for this ample storage space is the location of the battery system, which runs flat under the full length of the vehicle. You can switch the regenerative braking between ‘standard' and ‘aggressive' – which will play smoothness off against range.
If you drive a Tesla or e-tron in basic configuration, you will have to move your eyes from the road to check speed etc. The Peugeot e-Traveller has a head-up display and three power modes to suit your needs:-
- Eco: 60kW/180Nm for maximum range
- Normal: 80kW/210Nm for most scenarios
- Power: 100kW/260Nm when you need to put your foot down or carry heavy loads
The Peugeot e-Traveller can hit 80mph (130km/h) on a motorway and achieve 62mph in just over 13 seconds. On busy days, you can pick up an 80% charge in 30 minutes from a 100kW rapid charger. A full charge, overnight, on a 7kW charger will take around seven and a half hours.
If you really want to deplete your battery, then there's a powerful heating system and you can opt for heated seats. For icy conditions, you can get the car to pre-heat from your MyPeugeot app.
It's close to silent, so in order to comply with European regulations, the Peugeot e-Traveller will play a low-volume external noise to help announce its arrival to pedestrians.
With sales starting soon and e-Travellers being shipped in the coming months, you'll get a full spec and pricing from Peugeot's web site soon enough. For us, it needs to be close to the price of its diesel-powered siblings.
