Peugeot 208 - long-term review

The sweet spot. In pretty much any car that’s offered in a range of body styles, there’s always a Goldilocks spec – one that feels like it’s the one the car was born to be. In a Ford Fiesta, it’s the 1.0-litre EcoBoost petrol with 99bhp. Any more and you’re just wishing you had an ST, any less and it’s a bit too L-platey for its own good.

What about a Range Rover? You might kid yourself that a Range Rover Sport plug-in hybrid is very forward-thinking, but we all know that a full-fat Range Rover with a big turbodiesel is where that kind of machine feels most at home. It gives you that warm fuzzy feeling inside, a sense of… completeness.

Where is the 208’s bullseye, then? Well after a week back-to-back driving the e-208 with TG’s very own 1.2 PureTech GT-line… the battery car is the one I wanted to hang onto. And I didn’t expect that either.

Firstly, let’s deal with the range semantics. Yes, the maximum claimed range of 180 miles, versus 211 claimed, doesn’t look a whole lot, especially when the petrol powered 208 routinely returns 330 miles from a full 40-odd litre tank of unleaded. However, over the past three months, what with my weekly driving diary still on the low side after lockdown, the longest single trip I’ve taken in the 208 was a 125-mile Sunday morning run from Hertford to Nottingham (before the recent stricter lockdown instructions were issued). In fact, in an average week the 208 has rarely gone more than 40 miles in a single day, and even a busy week was what, 180 miles. Sound familiar?

Naturally, when I came to charge the e-208, the network let me down. I don’t have a home wallbox as I rent my house and the landlord has very little interest in installing a charger out of his own pocket, and I’m not exactly leaping at the chance to spend several hundred quid doing it myself only to end up moving out next year and leaving my investment buried in his driveway. As a result, I headed down to the local train station where the BP Chargemaster app proclaimed both public chargers were in operation. Predictably, both were on the fritz, and the customer service helpline’s best advice was ‘it says they’re working on my screen, are you sure?’ Sigh.

Regardless, with charge eventually admitted to the e-208, I was able to do some more driving, and the EV-Pug was better at that too. The petrol car feels flat-footed in corners – one colleague borrowed it and reported back it rides like a skateboard. I'm inclinded to agree. The e-208, of course, is set up like a skateboard, with its batteries hung low in the chassis, and the resulting centre of gravity making a better fist of roundabouts and curves. Frankly, it feels more like an EV that's been converted for internal combustion than the other way around.

I’ve said previously the 208 doesn’t really feel very ‘French’, or perhaps we need to adjust what we expect of a French car, because it’s so well-hewn, solid feeling, and mature. Well guess what – that suits the EV too. Because that’s even quieter, and there’s no eight-speed gearbox getting caught out when the lights suddenly go from red to amber just as the stop-start system has decided to take a nap. So, the e-208 is a more seamless, smooth car. Futuristic propulsion suits the edgy-looking 208. It looks, and drives, like a car that was never overly happy about being pushed along by a gutful of liquidised dinosaurs.

The 208 is perhaps a touch too much style over substance for me. I prefer old-school switches to turn my heating on and off, not a touchscreen. I’ve never quite sussed out the ideal driving position behind the shrunken steering wheel. I believe a Ford Fiesta is a better all-rounder. But I love that a design as ambitious as the 208’s can get signed off, and if it’d won me over, I’d be plumping for the e-208 as the sweet spot. You can't get an electric Fiesta, after all.