Electrical stormer
Peugeot’s new e-208 is quietly confident on the road
ONE of the quest i ons I ’ m most often asked about electric cars is if they are slow off the grid. I have no idea why anyone would think that, because in fact they usually are faster than their petrol or diesel equivalents.
Take this Peugeot 136hp e-208, for example. It hits 100kph from a standing start in 8.1 seconds, and that’s 0.6 of a second faster than its 129hp 1.2-litre petrol sibling, and, wait for it, a whopping 6.9 seconds faster than the 74hp version of the same car.
There’s a smashing urgency to its oomph, and it’s a huge amount of fun to drive, though electric mobility has its drawbacks. I ended up with an Opel Corsa-e for the six weeks of the second lockdown, and swapped it for this e-208 (they’re essentially the same car underneath) this week, and I can’t deny I’ve missed the sound of an engine in full throaty roar.
Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are all but silent, except for the occasional whine, and while that’s not an issue in local driving, it becomes a little tiresome on the motorway, or hurtling around the bends on the back roads.
The upside, of course, is that you save money, and that they’re especially handy for shorter trips. Given the 5km leisure limit and the right to drive further for shopping, I found I hardly had to recharge the Corsa at all for long periods.
My local supermarket is a 5km round trip and Dunnes and Tesco are a 20km round trip, and at one point I realised I hadn’t needed to charge the car for a fortnight.
Fo r s o me reason, this e-208 seems a little thirstier for power, but only by about 10 per cent, so nothing much to worry about.
WHERE both fall down, as do all BEVs, is on the motorway. At a steady 120kph, with the heating on in winter, the range drops a great deal faster. Predicted range of 240km was down to 100km after I had driven 103km to give the car back, so 37km got lost in the mix.
This Peugeot has a certified WLTP range of 349km on a single charge, but my guess is that you’d be hard pressed to achieve that yourself unless literally all your driving was on short urban commutes.
So, once again, these are terrific purchases for anyone who drives less than about 200km a day, which is about as far as I’d be comfortable with in winter for peace of mind, and if I had a decent home charger.
I don’t have a 7kWh wallbox at home, so on a standard socket, range is topped up to the tune of about six kilometres per hour; I’ll have to get one in the new year, because that’s too slow for comfort, when a wallbox would give a 100% charge overnight.
All that said, the e-208 is a fine car, good enough to win What Car? magazine’s Electric Small Car of the Year award in its Allure + trim level (I drove the higher spec GT), and the entire 208 family is the reigning European Car of the Year.
Regular readers will know I’m a big Peugeot fan, because the cars are very well built and the cabins are pretty much the best in the mass market. I love the 3D i-Cockpit and, in this GT version, the cloth/ l eather upholstery with green stitching and the night-time ambient cabin lighting.
On the exterior, the grille is a work of art, with blue highlighting to match the overall paint job, and what easily are the most beautiful wheels on any electric car I’ve driven to date, in any segment. They’re futuristic without being ridiculous, as is the case on the Electric MINI and some versions of the Volkswagen ID.3.
I love the automatic gear stick ( al l EVs have s i ngle - s peed t r ansmissions, i ncidentally, delivering very l i near power) and the compact sport steering wheel, which offers great connection between driver and car.
And, yes, I love the colour of this one too, which is spectacular in direct sunlight; the man who delivers my coal couldn’t take his eyes off it.
All in all, this is a very competent EV. Pricing starts at €26,853 net of the SEAI grant and the VRT rebate. The latter disappears on 1 January, but the VRT rate on EVs drops from 14% to 7%, so I don’t foresee much movement in the ultimate price.
Like it or not, we’re in the twilight years of internal combustion engines and, as EVs go, this is a nice pointer to what lies in store in the future. And of course it has to be said a bit of simulated engine noise would make it perfect!