DS Automobiles No 8 - long-term review

Time for a quick chat about ride and handling on the DS No.8 - a subject on which I can bore you silly within about seven minutes. At least that’s the amount of time it seems to take to turn most people glassy-eyed. It’s pitched as a comfort car, languid and stately. And on a smooth road, it generally is.

But throw in the usual potholes and acne of the UK road network, and the road-scanning system (DS Active Scan) is no better than a softly-sprung passive set-up. It’s fine, perfectly acceptable, but no more than that. The problem is that there’s still a miserly trade-off for the squish - turn into a corner at any more than 7/10ths in any mode and you get heftily-flagged and generous understeer, plus front-wheel drive dynamics and tyre squeal. That’ll be 350bhp and 377lb ft trying to escape through the medium of noise.

Of course, this isn’t a sportscar, but the nose-heavy tendency to push wide is actually quite surprising in the days of adjustable suspension. There’s body roll you could dance with, pitch and yaw. You can manage all of it - as you can with any car - but somehow, I expected something a bit more sophisticated. And yes, it’s better in Sport and 4x4 (where the rear motor is always in play), but you aren’t going to be hustling this thing for the love of the game.

As for efficiency, the hotter weather has seen a rise in the average to 3.5mi/kWh (from 3.2). Which is good. But real-world range is the same at 320-330 miles (versus 431 claimed), which doesn’t make absolute sense. Which is both good and bad - I haven’t had the drop-off associated with lower temperatures, but I also haven’t magically gained more with 25-degrees plus. It doesn’t actually make much difference at the moment - I’m happily mooching about with that range without having to use much public charging - but it’s interesting.

The conclusion, for me at least, is that with 300+ miles of reliable, real-world range, I don’t need much more to complete my most-used journeys - longest being to Gatwick Airport on a 288-mile round trip. Any more and I’ll usually just work out a pit stop.

Those pit stops, rare as they are, are proving that the No.8 isn’t so keen on hitting the published numbers, mind. We’ve not seen anywhere near the 160kW DC max, leaning into more like half that. As ever, could be the chargers, but I’d have expected to see more than 100. Must try a bit harder…

In other news, the car has flagged that we’re approaching first service at 8k miles (I’ve done about 7k of those), so it’ll be off for a health check in the next ten days. Interestingly, you can look up what the service entails on the DS app, and all it says is ‘Services: initial operation’ - which isn’t very illuminating. The next one (2years/16k miles) consists of passenger compartment filter and brake fluid… so there’s not much in-depth stuff going on. Let’s see exactly what happens soon.

I’ve also asked for the various mini-gremlins to be looked at, which consists of inconsistent switches - the electric memory seats don’t appear to work, nor does the heated windscreen. And the drive mode selector has a bit of a mind of its own, as does the haptic bar underneath the big screen. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, this car. Brilliant in some areas, very average in others. And yep, still got plenty more to talk about...