Peugeot 5008 review

The 5008 is a quietly satisfying thing to drive, hustling along the road in a way that belies its size. That is, as long as you don’t drive it on the limiter everywhere, which you won't because your passengers would commit mutiny if you tried.

The minuscule steering wheel gives the impression of driving a car far smaller and nimbler. Like all the controls it’s light and there’s little feel, but there's just enough communication through the steering for you to place the car with confidence on any kind of road.

Body roll is minimal and the ride well managed, making it agreeably comfortable for the most part. Around town it soaks up all but the biggest bumps adeptly, although the vastly heavier plug-in hybrid copes less well with ruts and jolts. At higher speeds the 5008 will happily waft along with minimal noise.

How do the powertrains compare?

Reminder: the hybrid gets the 1.2-litre petrol coupled with a 21bhp electric motor and 0.9kWh battery. It’s a tried and tested powertrain that’s shared across pretty much every Peugeot model, with the petrol engine and the electric gubbins working alone or in harmony when best suited.

Essentially you rely on the engine most of the time, with the electric motor there to assist on startup and under acceleration (0-62mph takes 11.3 seconds). Aside from very brief periods, such as when you’re crawling around town with the engine switched off, you wouldn’t know there was any electrical assistance at all. Which is a backhanded way of saying it’s all very smoothly integrated.

That only changes when you put your foot to the floor – then refinement goes out the window and you're met with a raucous 'Woah, what are you doing?!' from the 1.2. So you'll quickly learn to, er, not do that very often.

That serves to make the 5008 that much more frugal to run. Officially Peugeot quotes 45.2-53.3mpg WLTP: we averaged 45.2mpg, which included a fair amount of time sat in efficiency-killing, stop-start traffic. Pretty handy.

And what about the plug-in one?

Peugeot claims up to 48 miles of all electric range, courtesy of its 21kWh lithium-ion battery – the same as offered in the smaller 3008 PHEV. In our experience you'll be doing well to achieve half that range, especially if it's cold and you're fully laden with spouses (OK, maybe not plural) and offspring.

In e-mode the 123bhp motor provides calm progress, but it's better suited to pottering in traffic than the open road, where the lack of power is exposed. For faster stuff you'll want the assistance of the 1.6-litre petrol – combined output is 192bhp and a 0-62mph takes 8.3 seconds.

Outright e-range trumps the Hyundai Santa Fe and Kia Sorento, but is dwarfed by the Skoda Kodiaq (which is limited to five seats in PHEV guise, admittedly). So if it's penny-saving that matters to you and you can manage without the extra seats, it's the Skoda you want.

Emissions of 63g/km give the 5008 PHEV a BiK of nine per cent, while the WLTP figure for fuel economy is essentially meaningless – reckon on close to 40mpg when you've run out of battery, but the sky's your limit depending on how often you plug it in. A full charge takes 5h 30m on a home wallbox.