Verdict
Good-looking, comfortable and spacious, the Peugeot E-3008 is an excellent family runabout that in many ways is rewarding to own. But it has struggled more than anticipated to match its theoretical range figure, and it isn’t much fun to drive.
- Mileage: 5,344
- Efficiency: 3.1 miles/kWh
Electric cars are great, until they’re not, and a family emergency at the new year put our new Peugeot E-3008 on the spot.
It’s 160 miles from my house in Hampshire to my mum’s place in Devon, which should be a breeze for the car with a 327-mile maximum quoted range and a 73kWh battery. The key word there is ‘should’, because I used the Peugeot on the same route at Christmas, and it stumbled somewhat.
Starting out with a full battery and 300-plus miles showing on the dash, I arrived at the array of 350kW ultra-rapid chargers at Exeter’s Moto services (still 25 miles short of my destination) with only 30 per cent of charge left. It was 10pm on Christmas Eve, and I plugged in, expecting an ‘ultra-rapid’ charge that would see us on to Torbay and back to Hampshire in one hit.
Peugeot says the E-3008 has a maximum charge speed of 160kW, but the 350kW Gridserve charger peaked at 83kW, then dropped to 50kW after 10 minutes when the battery was 50 per cent charged. Then 40 minutes later, when the battery had crept up to 77 per cent, it was charging at just 41kW. At which point I’d had enough and left.
