Peugeot e-2008 2021 Review

Intro, Price, Options and Verdict

Introduction

Groupe PSA is clearly taking EVs seriously, but at the moment the company seems to be putting the same drivetrain in all vehicles from its various brands. The 50kW battery and 136hp motor in the Peugeot e-2008 can be found in the Vauxhall Corsa-e, the DS3, the Peugeot e-Traveller van, and the Peugeot e-208. The e-2008 houses this drivetrain in a crossover body, a popular form factor that sits between an SUV and hatchback. It exudes French style and flair, but are its abilities skin deep?

Price and Options

The e-2008 comes in a bewildering range of trim levels, which just to make things even more complicated have recently been mildly adjusted since the car was first launched in 2020. The basic Active option has been dropped and the GT Line (which is what we were actually sent for review) has been replaced by a GT Premium. So now there’s an Active Premium option, Allure and Allure Premium, plus GT and GT Premium trims. Prices range from £30,680 to £36,630. Key differentiations are the Drive Assist Pack Plus that is an option from Allure Premium and above, but standard on the GT Premium. This includes adaptive cruise control. Another key differentiation is the size of the central screen. This is 7in on the Active Premium and Allure, and 10in on the GT and GT Premium, as well as being an option on the Allure Premium.

However, all cars have electrically folding, heated wing mirrors, automatic windscreen wipers, electric front and rear windows, and tinted rear windows – although the tint is darker on the Allure and above. The majority of safety tech is standard across the range, too, but we’ll get to that later in this review. You can choose from a small selection of different colours, with a very intense luminous orange the basic shade. Then there are grey and black metallic, pearlescent white, blue, and red. The paints range in price from £300 to £725 extra. The blue of our review car is at the top of the price range. The wheel choices range from 16in for the Active Premium, 17in for the two Allure options and GT, and 18in for GT Premium.

There’s a huge range of finely detailed differences between the five trim levels, which wouldn’t make the most scintillating of reading if we listed every one of them. Buyers will need to pore over the brochure to be certain they get the features they want, and some premium features are options on lesser trim levels, just to make things even more confusing. However, one thing you don’t have to choose is the drivetrain. All of the e-2008 models have the same 50kWh battery and 136hp motor.

Design, Comfort and Storage

Exterior Design

The Peugeot e-2008 exudes gallic visual flair. Our blue press car is quite garish, and the standard orange even more so, but both are confidently bright in a way that goes well with the front grille design and three-lined lights, which give a fierce appearance. Although Peugeot calls this an SUV, it’s clearly more of a crossover – riding high but otherwise a large hatchback or small estate car. The plastic around the wheel arches provides a rugged look, but this is an urban front-wheel-drive car, not an off-roader.

The tinted rear windows and slight raise in the body at the back also give the car a more interesting appearance. The top GT models have subtle touches like the black rather than colour-coded mirrors, gloss black window surround, diamond black roof and rear spoiler, and darker chrome front grille. These add just a little bit of extra class, and some can be added as options lower down the trim range. But even without these additions, the e-2008 is a good-looking vehicle, although its chunky appearance won’t be to everyone’s taste.

Interior Comfort

Just as there are lots of subtle differences between the trim levels on the outside of the e-2008, the same can be said of the interior. The Active Premium just comes with cloth seats, the Allure models have cloth with leather effect, while the GT has a slightly different cloth with leather effect. The GT Premium uses Alcantara and cloth. The Active and Allure offer Comfort seats and the GT and GT Premium Sport seats. The Sport seats are heated as standard, but you can also add heating to the Allure models.

The Sport seats in our press car were comfortable enough, but one thing you don’t get on any of these seats is electronic adjustment. Instead, this is a mechanical process. The Active Premium only offers height adjustment on the driver’s side, but all other trim levels have this on both sides. It’s a big surprise to see no electronic seat adjustments in car that is otherwise so well equipped. The extra height of the crossover format does at least mean there’s plenty of headroom in the front. This is further enhanced on the GT Premium by the panoramic sunroof, although you can ask not to have this and save £600. The glass opens electrically but the roller blind is manual.

The front seat occupants get a useful little cubby under the central armrest, and two cupholders although strangely they’re different sizes. There’s a Chi charger under the central screen inside another little cubby. This is standard on the GT models, an option on the Allures, and not available all with the Active Premium trim.

The rear is also quite spacious, with decent headroom although the room for adult knees is merely adequate. The central seat will only be usable by an adult for short journeys, and even a child will find it a little cramped. There are no air conditioning vents for rear passengers, but they do get two USB ports for charging their devices, and magazine holders in the backs of the seats in front. The two outer rear seats and the front passenger seat have ISOfix mounts for child car chairs.

Storage and Load Carrying

Crossovers usually have the benefit of a bit more luggage space than a standard hatchback, and the Peugeot e-2008 is close to the level of a capable estate car. The standard boot has a decent 434 litres, which is bigger than a hatchback like the VW ID.3, although the Kia e-Niro has more. There’s a modular boot floor that allows extra items like charging cables to be kept underneath.

The rear seats fold forward with the typical 60/40 split. The total capacity with both sections of the rear seats forward is a very healthy 1,467 litres, which is more than the Kia e-Niro and a lot more than the VW ID.3. In fact, it’s on par with a mid-sized estate car. It’s even a little more than the MG5 EV. In other words, this is a very practical car for lugging cargo or doing a big grocery shop.

In-Car Entertainment and Controls

The Peugeot e-2008 has a relatively conventional set of controls. There’s a Start-Stop button that you must use for all models up to and including GT, whereas the GT Premium lets you get into the car and get going without needing to remove the keys from your pocket or press anything other than the gear lever.

The latter is like a joystick and will be familiar from other cars from the Groupe PSA portfolio like the Vauxhall Corsa-e. You use this to select reverse, neutral and drive. If you pull the joystick a second time in the drive direction, it engages B mode, which is an extra level of regenerative braking although not as fierce as full single-pedal driving.

There’s a rocker switch to choose between the three drive modes – eco, normal and sport. There’s also a separate electronic parking brake. You get discrete controls for the air conditioning – always welcome so you don’t have to scrabble through a LCD to set the cabin temperature. However, any changes you make are illustrated via the central screen, which also provides touchscreen AC controls. The system isn’t zoned, though.

The slightly odd square steering wheel has a few buttons and wheels on either side, but not too many. We like the balance between offering enough discrete buttons and not having so many you have to really look away from driving to make sure you’re pressing the right one. There are separate stalks for lights, windscreen wipers, and cruise control. Again, very conventional and intuitive.

There’s a dashboard display behind the steering wheel. This shows charge level in graphical form and a numerical range indication on the left, with power and regenerative braking illustrated on the right. On the Allure Premium and above, this display has a 3D effect with important readouts like the current speed floating in front of others in the middle, which is very cool-looking but not necessarily any better or safer than a conventional display.

As already mentioned, the e-2008 comes with either a 7in or a 10in central LCD, depending on the trim level. The Active Premium and Allure models come with 7in as standard, although the Allure Premium can be upgraded to 10in. The GT models have 10in as standard. Our fleet sample was actually a GT Line, which as we said earlier has been replaced by the slightly better specified GT Premium, but this still includes the 10in screen. Whichever screen you choose, you get FM and DAB radio. There’s support for Apple Car Play and Android Auto. The menu system is reasonable logical and easy to operate. All the screens use touch operation and are reasonably fast and responsive.

The “Connected 3D Navigation” is quite an expensive option with the 7in screen, costing £650 on the Active Premium and Allure. It’s an even more pricey £950 with the 10in screen on the Allure Premium, because it comes as a bundle with an upgrade to the larger panel. This alone is half the difference in cost between and the next model up, the GT. Both GT and GT Premium have Connected 3D Navigation as standard. The Connected system includes TomTom live services which comprise real-time traffic and speed cam warnings. The basic subscription is three years, although you can add an extra year or three. The GT and Premium therefore have these benefits as standard.

Performance, Running Costs, Range, and Safety

Performance and Driving

With a 136hp motor, the same as in the Vauxhall Corsa-e, you’d expect the Peugeot e-2008 to have similar performance. However, despite being relatively light for an EV at 1,548kg, not much more than the Corsa-e, the e-2008 is noticeably slower, taking 8.5 seconds to reach 60mph, which is 0.7 seconds behind the Vauxhall car. Peugeot has obviously tuned things a bit differently.

You do feel this car being a little more sluggish and less “cheeky” than the Corsa-e when driving urgently, but being a crossover it’s more likely to be a family vehicle that you’d want to drive in a more relaxed fashion anyway. It’s hardly a slouch, and still has that immediate torque we love in EVs. It also has less noticeable torque steer, which is something we frequently experience with EVs that marry a decent level of torque and power with a front-wheel-drive system on a relatively heavy car.

We find the angular steering wheel a little odd, although you might consider it quite stylish. However, the steering itself is very neutral, neither particularly light nor involving. Like the acceleration, this has clearly been set up for a smooth everyday experience rather than for engagement. However, the e-2008 sits very comfortably at motorway speeds. The top speed is just 93mph, but that’s perfectly adequate for British motorways.

Range and Charging

Peugeot promises a range of up to 206 WLTP miles, which is decent but now that the extremely affordable MG5 EV can manage 214 miles and the Renault Zoe 245 miles, it’s a bit behind the curve. If you have 18in wheels, the range is just 191 miles. This will be perfectly adequate for driving about town and regular commutes but will entail more careful long journey planning than Kia and Hyundai cars with ranges closer to 300 miles.

The display is a bit erratic, and our car only claimed to have 142 miles fully charged, even when the weather was not that cold. However, a trip from Coventry to North London of 90 miles only consumed 74 miles with aircon off. The changes in range estimation weren’t as wild as with the Vauxhall Corsa-e, but you will still have to get to know the battery characteristics before you can be really confident.

If you do go on a long journey, the e-2008 supports DC charging up to 100kW, and using the latter you can get an 80% charge in just 30 minutes from 10% capacity. If you charge on a 7kW AC wall box, full capacity from zero will take a reasonable seven and a half hours. You can also add 11kW AC charging for £300 extra, but obviously will need three-phase power for a charger capable of this level.

Running Costs

Assuming the top WLTP range and a 14p power supply, this car will cost a reasonable 3.4p a mile to run. The insurance groups, ranging from 25 to 27, are reasonable enough too. The warranty is just mediocre, consisting of three years or 60,000 miles, which is behind what Kia and Hyundai offer. The battery has a longer eight-year, 100,000-mile guarantee for at least 70% capacity. Peugeot recommends a two-year, 16,000-mile service interval with each one costing around £200.

Safety

Although exterior and interior trim options are multifarious, the safety options are reassuringly uniform across the range. All cars have Lane Keep Assist, speed limit recognition and recommendation, and some form of active safety braking. The Allure and above add cyclist and pedestrian detection to their automatic braking. Driver attention warning is also standard, but active blind spot monitoring is an option on the GT and GT Premium.

All cars have rear parking sensors, but only the GT models have front ones as well. The Allure and above have a rear camera and various view options when reversing, although this is an option on the Active Premium as well. Semi-automatic parking is a £250 option on the GT cars. All cars have some form of cruise control, but the adaptive version is an option only for Allure Premium and above. It's standard on the GT Premium. The 2008 has four or five stars in Euro NCAP, depending on safety package.

Key Specifications

*based on electricity costs of 14p per kWh