Peugeot e-5008 review

This is the third generation of Peugeot’s range-topping seven-seater SUV, available for the first time with an electric powertrain. In fact, you won’t be able to get a purely combustion engined version at all in the UK, it’s hybrid, plug-in hybrid (both with petrol assistance) or electric only.

The 5008 has been a solid seller for Peugeot, and its appeal is only enhanced by keeping the full complement of chairs with batteries stuffed in the car. Seriously – the list of electric seven-seaters is short, and the e-5008 is much cheaper than a Mercedes EQS SUV, Volvo EX90 or even the massive Kia EV9. It's a bit more practical than a Merc EQB, plus it’s cheaper and more user friendly than an ID.Buzz 7-Seat. 

There’s some in-house rivalry from the Citroen Berlingo and Peugeot Rifter, which come with seven-seater versions, but those two have significantly smaller batteries and less range.

That’s a… bold looking face.

We’ve not been able to nail down the e-5008 look – is it angry about something, slightly confused, or is it just about to sneeze and holding it in? The grille is a spray of design flair that looks particularly good in the two shades of blue Peugeot offers the car in (everything else is black, white or grey sadly) and the lines are largely clean aside from some origami-like flourishes at each corner.

Whether you think Peugeot is on a design roll or not (we do), we can all agree that the e-5008 disguises its seven-seat heft very well. Does it work from every angle? Possibly not, but just don’t stand there and you’ll be fine.

The wheels look like fancy biscuits.

They do, and very tasty ones at that. All evidence of the e-5008’s attempts to be wilfully different. We’re here for it. It’s not style over substance, though: the Peugeot makes a case for itself as a practical everyday family car even before it tries to win you over with things like ‘style’ or ‘saving money because of its zero emissions’.

Let’s talk electric numbers.

You’ve got the choice of two different battery sizes - 73kWh and 97kWh - which are rated for 339 and 414 miles of official WLTP range respectively.

You can realistically lop a bit of range off that for real world driving: we reckon around 3.3/3.4mi/kWh is achievable.  That means just under 300 miles from the smaller battery and just over 350 miles from the bigger battery. More than enough for most.

Can you fit seven people in?

One of the perks of the e-5008’s nifty packaging is that you can actually fit grownups right in the back of the car, but they won’t be comfortable for too long. So the Peugeot is useful for cramming everyone in for short runs, but kids will be fine back there.

You still get a decent slug of space with all the seats up – there’s 350 litres of bootspace at your disposal (a massive 916 litres with the third row folded down and 2,232 with all of the seats flat) and one of those fake floors that helps create a flat load space and gives you some space underneath to squirrel things away.

What’s going on with the dashboard?

Peugeot’s idiosyncratic driving setup is fairly well established by this point – tiny steering wheel and lofty digital dash means you look over the wheel rather than through it for your driving information.

The rest of the dashboard is set up nicely around you: it all looks very swoopy and disguises some of the parts bin switchgear much better than on other Stellantis products. You can tell that Peugeot is the biggest cheese on this board. 

The e-5008 lends itself to a more upright driving position – if you tend to lean back behind the wheel then this setup causes more problems for you – so it works well enough here. We also like Peugeot’s elegant configurable touch toggle setup, where you can line up your chosen shortcuts in a panel underneath the touchscreen portion of the display. More about that on the Interior tab.

The e-5008 is a great all-round family car, and all the better for managing to keep its seven seats in the transition to electric power. If you need the space, it’s a surprisingly cheap way into electric family motoring. As well as being practical it looks sharp and is reasonably engaging to drive. Seems like a winner in our books.