Peugeot e-208 long term test

The car Peugeot e-208 GT 51kWh Run by James Tute, Content Editor

Why it's here To see if Peugeot’s small electric car is agile enough for city driving while remaining practical for longer trips to the Shires

Needs to Be well-suited to rush-hour traffic and comfy on motorway drives, with enough range for hassle-free long journeys

Mileage 3057 List price £32,900 Target Price £32,900 Price as tested £34,760 Official range 248 miles Test range 186 miles Options fitted Upgraded front seats (£500), Connected 3D navigation (£400), heat pump (£400), 11kW triphase on-board charger (£360), Parking Pack (£200)

18 December 2024 – All features great and small

At 6ft 3in tall, I’m someone you might spot lumbering around a car park and think: “Blimey, I bet that guy hates driving small cars.” But you’d be wrong.

If I can get comfy in the driver’s seat, small suits me fine. More than fine, actually. I don’t need loads of seats because I don’t do mob-handed road trips. And I don’t need a huge boot because I don’t do tip runs.

Instead, I’m attracted to models that are compact enough to be easy to manoeuvre in city streets. After all, living in Central London, I start every drive with several miles of what you might call the urban crawl.

So for my new car, I’ve gone for this tennis-ball-coloured Peugeot e-208 – which is not only small but also (as the “e-” makes clear) electric. It is, as you probably know, the all-electric version of the Peugeot 208, and I think it looks pretty funky.

I’m hoping it’s as good as it looks for my commute from Central London to What Car?’s office in Twickenham. I also hope it serves me well on longer trips out of the city (to my home town in Cheshire, for example). 

My e-208 has the bigger of two battery options available (51kWh), giving it an official range of 248 miles. I know not to expect to get that far in real life, but being able to drive around 200 miles without having to charge up would be handy. I’ll be keeping a record of how often I plug in – and how much it costs – over the next few months, so I can monitor the car’s real range and efficiency.

As part of that, I’ve optioned the £400 EV heat pump – designed to prevent the interior heaters draining the E-208’s main battery too much during colder weather.

When driving electric cars without heat pumps, I’ve seen how switching on the air-con can cause the predicted range reading to lurch downwards by 20 miles or more at the push of a button (or, more commonly, a prod of the infotainment touchscreen).

It will be interesting to see if I notice the difference with the e-208, both in winter and as the weather starts to warm up.

I’ll also be finding out how the 100kW maximum charging speed translates into time spent at public chargers (I don’t have the facilities at home for charging up). Peugeot predicts it should take half an hour to get to 80% – I’ll let you know if that proves accurate.

I’ve also invested in comfort, with a £500 upgrade for the front seats. As well as coming in Alcantara material with flash green stitching, they have a massage function, heating and – most importantly for me – multi-way powered adjustment.

I’ve spent enough time in cars fiddling with the height and angle of the driver’s seat to know that using buttons is infinitely better than tugging or twisting manual adjusters.

Likewise, my car – which is the top-of-the-range GT version – has the £200 optional Parking Pack, with front and rear cameras to hopefully keep the Agueda Yellow paintwork in good nick.

I’m doing without the £300 Drive Assist Pack Plus – which includes adaptive cruise control (a feature I usually love) – because I’m hoping I’ll find the E-208 so involving to drive that I’m happy to do all the work. That said, it does feature ordinary cruise control and a speed limiter, which should be handy in all the 20mph zones I drive through.

How’s it going with the e-208 so far? Well, it took a little while to find that ideal seating position. In fact, I really struggled with back pain on journeys of half an hour or more – but then our Used Cars editor Mark Pearson came to the rescue.

“It’s a Peugeot – you need to be more laid back,” he advised. And so instead of trying to sit bolt upright, I tipped the seat so far back I felt like I was in the dentist’s chair. It seemed weird at first, but I can report that I’ve now done several long drives without so much as a twinge.

Let’s hope the e-208 keeps me just as laid back over the next few months.

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