Electric supermini looks to make hay while direct rivals are thin on the ground
ILLYA VERPRAET
TESTED 2.4.24, KENT ON SALE NOW
Where are all the small electric cars? I was looking around for what else one might buy instead of a Peugeot e-208, if one were in the market for a mildly posh, mildly practical, small, battery-powered car. It turns out there aren’t many alternatives, and most are actually the same car underneath (DS 3, Jeep Avenger, Vauxhall Corsa, etc). The Fiat 500 is very small indeed, the Mazda MX-30 has a very short range and… Well, that’s about it for the moment. The Mini Cooper E, Renault 5 and Volkswagen ID 2 are all in various stages of imminence, but they’re not here yet.
On the face of it, the e-208 looks like it ticks a lot of boxes. It has five doors, its interior feels upmarket and the whole car looks quite sharp. That said, I don’t think this facelift is an improvement, since the distinctive ‘claw mark’ light signature has been watered down.
The official range of 248 miles and maximum rapid-charging speed of 100kW are fine, but I was still a little disappointed to see an average of just 3.6mpkWh. This was with the newer 50.8kWh battery; most e-208 trims continue to use the older 50kWh battery, which isn’t much smaller but is significantly less efficient.
In practice, the e-208 has quite a lot of traits that can get on your nerves. All cars based on Stellantis’s e-CMP platfo
