Citroen e-Berlingo review

The interior of the e-Berlingo is as cavernous as you would expect. It’s the little things, like the fact that it’s so wide you can fit your backpack between the two front seats. 

There’s acres of headroom for all shapes and sizes and those front two seats are wide and comfortable. It’s a fairly straightforward layout – a steering wheel right in front of you (handy), a pair of dials behind and an 8in touchscreen hoisted atop the centre part of the dash. The top spec Flair XTR model gets a 10in digital instrument panel that’s quite nifty, but it’s hardly a must-have accessory. 

All the functionality – such as it is, this isn’t the most technology loaded car on the market – is adjusted via the central touchscreen, but there are a few buttons to adjust things like the air temperature and fan speed, sandwiched between the vents and the gear shift selector. The one irritation with the screen is the fact that the sole USB socket sits at the bottom of the screen, which means you have a wire trailing down to your phone in the small mobile-sized cubbie behind the gear selector. 

Does it feel cheap inside?

It’s not an inspiring interior by any stretch, but – as Citroen has pointed out repeatedly – offers exactly the functionality you need. It’s a sea of plastic, but hard-wearing plastic that’ll survive most nuclear blasts and is thus adequately built for dealing with kids. Citroen has worked hard to disguise the cheapness of the plastics, with some interesting colours, shapes and textures about the place. 

What about rear space? 

All the rear seats are individual ones, with a flat floor across the second row. It makes for a decent amount of space for rear passengers. Everyone should be fairly happy back here. If you’ve got the seven-seat XL version those two back seats are just about possible for adult-sized people, but they wouldn’t thank you for the opportunity to sit there for a lengthy roadtrip.

Bootspace with seats six and seven up stands at 209 litres in the XL car, but rises to a whopping 3,500 litres with everything folded down. The M offers an equally impressive 775 litres that expands to 3,000 with the seats down.