DS3 Crossback E-Tense 2022 Review

Intro, Price, Options and Verdict

Introduction

The Citroen DS is an icon of automotive history, with its futuristic looks and many innovations gaining considerable praise over its 20-year lifespan from its 1955 release. So it’s not surprising that when PSA Group (now part of Stellantis) wanted to create a new premium sister brand to Citroen, DS Automobiles was born. The DS3 Crossback E-Tense is the first pure electric vehicle from the marque. It was launched in 2019, but bar a few new trims, price alterations and a mild increase in range, it hasn’t changed much since then. Is this electric DS worthy of the legendary brand heritage?

Price and Options

The first sign that the DS3 is more generic than the classic 1955-75 Citroen DS is the fact that this car has the same motor and battery combination as pretty much everything else from Stellantis. In other words, it has 136hp and 50kWh respectively. At least Stellantis is getting its money's worth out of this powertrain.

Although the motor and battery are uniform across the DS3 E-tense range, there are five trim levels, as before, but some of the names have changed. This starts with the Bastille, Performance Line, Performance Line+, and “Rivoli”, which was originally called Ines de la Fressange. Our sample car was the previous top Ultra Prestige model, which is no longer available. This has been replaced by a limited-edition Louvre version just announced at the time of writing, although we don’t know how limited this will be. So that makes five models.

All cars have rear parking sensors, automatic wipers, electric folding mirrors and rear tinted windows. They also all have the Safety Pack, which includes a generous selection of modern technologies. The standard wheels are 17in. The Performance Line adds a nicer cloth interior, and the Performance Line + upgrades the wheels to 18in, as well as adding matrix LED lights, keyless entry, and a connected navigation system with a larger touchscreen. The Ultra Prestige we reviewed added leather seats, a reversing camera, and an Advanced Safety Pack with a few more features. The new Rivoli trim now offers a similar spec, as does the Louvre.

There is quite a wide range of colours available, with eight different options plus the ability to have a different shade of roof with some choices. These range in price from £550 to £750. Pearlescent paints are £850 or £950. There are two different 17in wheel options and five different 18in wheels. Upgrading from 17in to 18in wheels costs between £450 and £650, and on cars that already have 18in wheels, choosing a different design will be between £100 and £200.

In other words, there is an almost bewildering range of style options available, and we haven't even got to the interior yet. On that note, there are seven different interior choices, too, ranging in price up to £2,200.

Unfortunately, the DS3 has been caught out by the two changes in the government plug-in grant over the last year. With the first change, the bottom two DS3 trims still got the grant. But now none of them do, because even the base Bastille version is £34,000. The Performance Line is only £400 more at £34,400, whereas the Performance Line+ is much more at £37,400, and the Rivoli £38,600. The limited-edition Louvre is a whopping £40,800. Considering a Tesla Model 3 is just £2,000 more than that, the Louvre seems particularly expensive.

Our loan car actually came from Onto, which charges £519 a month, which is almost the same as DS’s finance option of £522.45 per month. But the Onto price includes charging for 1,000 miles a month, insurance, maintenance and servicing. Basically, there's nothing more to pay, so it’s a good deal. Overall, though, while the DS3 trims give you quite a lot of kit for your money, the high price mean its value isn't that great. Sister company Citroen gives you more with the e-C4.

Design, Comfort and Storage

Exterior Design

The DS3’s “Crossback” name hints at this car’s crossover aspirations, although its size is smaller than some vehicles that adopt this category. The DS3 is a little bit wider and longer than a Peugeot e-208 or Vauxhall Corsa-e, for example, but quite a lot taller. It's nowhere near as large as the Peugeot e-2008, though. The tallness allows for battery integration without losing interior space.

The Crossback name also differentiates this DS3 from the Citroen DS3 out of which it evolved. The latter is a more conventional hatchback, with a lower stance. The Crossback maintains a family resemblance but with a more rugged look thanks to plastic wheel arches and a deeper front grille that adds muscularity. The lines are quite curved, with stylish elements such as the angular swooshes either side of the headlights. The smaller rear windows add character, but passengers might have preferred more glass, although these are tinted for privacy on all cars. This will be welcome if you want to avoid anybody looking at your kids in the rear seats.

The keyless entry system is also quite classy. With cars that have this feature, the car unlocks, and wing mirrors unfurl as you approach. The door handles also pop out to present themselves for entry, otherwise lying flush against the car doors.

Interior Comfort

The DS's interior is very clearly a French idea of what's stylish, some of which you might agree with, and some of which you might not. The diamond motifs liberally placed everywhere could be appealing, or you might find them a little too much. Either way, the finish is a bit too plasticky for our taste.

As our sample was a top-of-the-range car, the seats were leather, and you can choose this in light grey or black. The stitching and moulding on our car was also quite intricate because it had the £950 Opera upgrade. The Bastille leather and Rivoli cloth and Nappa leather are less elaborate, and lower trims have cloth, although the Bastille option is still available for £1,200 and Opera for £2,200.

The seats are comfortable, with a decent amount of headroom. Six footers will be fine. However, even at the top of the range, adjustment is mechanical. It's a surprise when a car that costs close to £40k doesn't have any electric adjustments.

Another missing element on our sample was wireless phone charging. You get two front USB ports on the Performance Line+ and Rivoli, but just one on other cars. There’s a phone pad that is large enough to accommodate the largest devices, but it doesn’t offer wireless phone charging without another £200 extra, which our review sample car didn't have. The central console also sports a couple of cupholders and a decently sized cubby underneath the central armrest with a removable small change holder.

The rear outer seats are also reasonably comfortable, and the middle seat is wider than some. However, while headroom is good, knee room is limited. Here, six footers and above will feel cramped. There is also no central armrest in the middle seat back, and no separate air vents or USB ports for rear passengers. However, you do get ISOfix points for child car chairs in the two rear seats and front passenger seat.

Storage and Load Carrying

When you first attempt to open the DS3’s boot, you will be scratching your head how this functions. The button isn’t anywhere you might expect. However, in common with the Vauxhall Mokka-e and (apparently) a number of French cars, the button is actually further down than that, just above the number plate. Otherwise, you could use the keyfob.

Although this car is a little higher than the Peugeot e-208 and Vauxhall Corsa-e, the boot space isn't much larger. With the rear seats up, it's 350 litres, which is a bit more than the average hatchback, but not much. There is a little bit of space under the boot floor, but not enough for charging cables.

However, when you drop the rear seats down, which offers the usual 60/40 split, you get 1,050 litres, which is slightly less than some hatchbacks. It's still a useful amount of space, and the boot floor is reasonably flat. But it’s disappointing in a crossover, which is meant to offer some of the cargo benefits of a full SUV.

In-Car Entertainment and Controls

The DS3's steering wheel is comfortable enough with large easy to use buttons. These offer volume and voice control enablement on the left, with hands free phone operation on the right. There are conventional stalks for the windscreen wipers on the right and lights on the left. There’s a separate stalk for the cruise control on the left too, which isn’t adaptive.

The drive controls are mostly intuitive, operating via a gearstick that will be familiar if you've driven Peugeot EVs, or the Corsa-e. You must push a side button to engage drive or reverse. If you push forward without this, you get neutral. You pull back once more for B mode with extra regen, but there doesn't appear to be an auto hold function so you can't have true single-pedal driving. There's a P button for parking mode and a separate electronic parking brake. A rocker is available to choose eco, normal or sport motor power levels.

You will also note something slightly unusual here in that all the buttons for the electric windows are in the middle. Saabs have this too, but it’s an uncommon feature. The touch buttons in the centre of the dashboard are a bit unresponsive, although you do get some for important heater controls including the front and rear demisting. The rest of the air conditioning functions must be operated via the LCD panel.

The digital dashboard display provides speed in numerical form at the top and state of charge on one side plus power / regeneration on the other. The central section can be configured with a variety of display options, but the most useful in our opinion is the snippet of the navigation screen, so you don’t have to look left while driving. You can add a head-up display for £300 more, which our review car had. It’s a reasonably price option and although not projecting onto the windscreen, instead using a plastic panel, it works well with clear information.

The basic cars have a 7in media and nav screen, but from the Performance Line+ and above, it's a 10in unit. You can upgrade the 7in unit to 10in for £700, which also adds the connected satnav. However, we don’t like the monochromatic colouring of the navigation screen, which is hard to see in regular mode, and even harder in night mode. With no support for Apple Car Play or Android Auto, you can’t replace this with your phone’s navigation either. The DAB radio is a bit of a pain too. The default interface makes it hard to find a station, but if you switch to list mode it's a lot easier. The general settings are simple enough to find and configure, though, such as they are.

Performance, Running Costs, Range, and Safety

Performance and Driving

The DS3 is a pleasant enough, hassle-free drive. Although DS calls this car a crossover, because it rides a bit higher than regular cars, the size sits somewhere between a Vauxhall Corsa-e or Peugeot e-208 and a Peugeot e-2008. So the handling is a little more hatchback than SUV. Like the Citroen e-C4 and Peugeot cars with this drivetrain, DS has downplayed performance a little compared to Vauxhall’s Corsa-e. This car takes 8.7 seconds to hit 62mph, and the top speed is 93mph.

However, it does feel faster than this during city driving, and the suspension is quite soft, making it comfy enough for cruising around town. There is some sense of torque steer, as with every front-wheel-drive electric car, but the engine isn't powerful enough to make this disturbing. The DS3 feels solid at motorway speeds, but the range does drop noticeably, and we wouldn't recommend doing more than about 125 miles between charging stops if you're mostly travelling at 70mph, even with the now slightly improved range.

Range and Charging

Unsurprisingly, with that 50kWh Stellantis battery pack, the DS3 has a very similar range to other cars from the same group. This was originally up to 206 WLTP miles, but was increased to 212 miles a few months ago with an update, although this goes down with 18in wheels, which our test car had.

There's DC charging up to 100kW, which can put an 80% charge into the car in 30 minutes. On a 7kW AC wallbox, a full charge will take around 7.5 hours.  All trim levels offer 11kW three-phase AC charging as well, dropping charging to 5 hours.

With the reasonable rapid charging, despite the mediocre range, you could just about use the DS3 for longer journeys, although it is better suited for commuting and short local travel. The range does drop more noticeably at motorway speeds, though. You also get 6 months free subscription to bp pulse, giving you a reduced rate when using charging stations from this network.

Of course, our car was from Onto so came with 1,000 miles of charging from bp pulse and Shell Recharge a month included.

Running Costs

With a 14p per kWh supply, the DS3 costs 3.3p per mile, which is reasonable. The basic warranty for DS’s cars is three years or 60,000 miles. Korean cars offer considerably more, although this is on par for European cars. But the battery gets eight years and 100,000 miles for 70% capacity, which is typical. Insurance groups range from 27 to 30, depending on trim level. This is a little higher than, for example, the Citroen e-C4, which is only insurance group 22.

Safety

A lot of what the DS3 seems to be about is the way it looks, but it's reassuring that it also takes safety seriously. All cars have some form of automatic emergency braking, lane keeping assistance, and lane departure warning. The Advanced Safety Pack is included on the Rivoli trim and a £400 option on others. This adds extended versions of the emergency braking and lane keep assist systems as well as blind spot detection.

Our Ultra Prestige car included front parking sensors and the rear parking camera as standard, which the Rivoli trim also has, but you can add these via the City Pack to Bastille and Performance Line for £450, and to the Performance Line+ for £250. You can add a head-up-display for £300, which is reasonable for this feature.

Key Specifications

*based on electricity costs of 14p per kWh