Peugeot E-308 review

Pricing now starts below £30,000 if you’ve benefited from the current UK government Electric Car Grant. Which feels something of a steal when the E-308 launched at over £40,000 a few years ago with poorer range and regen. Stellantis clearly needs to sharpen its claws as Chinese rivals grow in number around it. There have been no pulled punches with this updated car.

What are the trims like? 

Allure trim comes with 18in alloys, a reversing camera and all the active safety equipment we’ve now come to expect (and occasionally get perturbed by) on mainstream cars. It starts at £30,995 pre-ECG (currently £1,500) which seems astonishingly competitive when a base, mild-hybrid 308 starts at £29,995 with less power and razzmatazz.

GT trim commands another £2,000 for more in-depth touchscreen functionality, front and rear LED lights (the headlights are Matrix LEDs that can maintain a full beam without blinding oncoming cars and pedestrians) plus the illuminated grille flourishes and Peugeot badge up front.

A further £1,500 upgrades you to GT Premium and its Alcantara seat trim, heated wheel, heated and massaging front seats, 360-degree parking camera system and a whole host of extra drive assist tech, including some semi-autonomous cruise control functionality in crummy traffic. It also gets a heat pump as standard; that’s a £400 option on the trims below.

Tell me about charging…

The battery is almost ten per cent punchier post-facelift, for a claimed WLTP range of 279 miles. We scored 4.3mpkWh in mixed driving, which equates to a range of around 240 miles if you dare run the car close to zero. More like 200 miles if you’re leaving a sensible safety margin.

It’ll charge at up to 11kW AC and 100kW DC; a 20 to 80 per cent charge can take as little as five hours on a 7kW wall box, 3h35m at 11kW or 32 minutes if you’re hooked up to the full 100kW DC rapid charge.

Helping further win over EV newbies (or sceptics) is the availability of a ‘Free2Move’ charge pass, a partnership with Octopus which provides simple one-tap access to over half a million chargers across Europe. Nevertheless, you’ll get the most out of EV ownership if you can plug in at home and avoid the pricey public charging network as much as possible.

Another improvement since the E-308’s launch concerns warranty cover, the eight-year/100,000-mile period of the battery now applied to the whole car thanks to the Peugeot Care scheme. They claim the broadest coverage of any European brand.