Peugeot e-5008 review

Better than you think it will. The e-5008 benefits over its hybrid siblings thanks to all that battery mass slung low in the middle of the car, which means it will cling on grimly through all sorts of corners.

There’s assertive handling, thanks in part to the tiny steering wheel, which makes the car feel lithe and manoeuvrable around town. On the motorway it's a bit more highly strung until you’re used to the more sensitive inputs needed.

The suspension does a nice job of keeping the car in check, smoothing out bumps but not allowing too much body roll. We’d avoid the 20in wheels, even if they fill out the arches better – they allow just that bit more road noise into the cabin and affect the ride.

So basically a sports car then?

Well, no. But it’s more fun than it needs to be at lower speeds. The output of the motor has been well judged so you rarely get torque steer or rabid wheel spinning from the front, but as with many electric cars you’ll want to keep it in Eco mode to get as much range out of it as possible.

If you’re going for records, then the entry powertrain with its 211bhp/254lb ft will get to 62mph from rest in 9.7 seconds, while the marginally more powerful, bigger batteried version (228bhp/254lb ft) lops a tenth off for a 9.6-second run. Both have a 105mph top speed and a kerbweight around 2.2 tonnes, which is to be expected for an EV of this size.

What’s the range like?

The 73kWh car is rated up to 339 miles and the 97kWh car up to 414 miles, both of which are entirely reasonable numbers. We drove the 73kWh car around for a week in slightly chilly weather and found that 290/300 miles was doable in careful mixed driving. Around 3.3mi/kWh, e-efficiency fans.

The e-5008 is equipped for 11kW three-phase AC chargers (this mostly matters for public chargers unless you’ve got very fancy domestic electrics – think 7kW otherwise) and will rapid charge on DC up to 160kW. The bigger battery can sustain that for longer, so a 20–80 per cent juice will take 30 minutes on the 73kWh car but 27 minutes on the 97kWh car.