Peugeot e-208 Review & Prices

If you’re looking to make the switch into a small electric car, the Peugeot e-208 could be a great place to start. It has a decent range, cool looks and is more practical day-to-day than the likes of the Honda e or Mini Electric.

In fact, it’s also very similar to the Vauxhall Corsa-e – both brands have the same parent company and are pretty much the same underneath.

Some of the very first vehicles were EVs, but comparing them with modern electric cars like the Peugeot e-208 is like comparing the latest iPhone with morse code. The e-208 can be rapid-charged as standard and be controlled using an app. It’s so good, in fact, that it won the carwow Best Small Electric Car in the 2021 carwow Car of the Year Awards.

The e-208’s sculpted bonnet, three-claw LED light designs and prominent rear piano black trim give it a distinctive look. You can tell it apart from the regular 208 by its ‘e’ prefix and special Peugeot badge that changes colour in different lights.

A 7.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system comes as standard, and includes DAB radio and Bluetooth, but more importantly Apple CarPlay and Android Auto too. An option (or standard on GT models) is a 10.0-inch version of the same system which also includes a built-in sat nav. In both cases, the screen is high resolution, and the menus are fairly easy to navigate with e-208-specific energy info included, although the small on-screen buttons can be hard to hit confidently while driving.

EV Range Test: Honda e v Mini Electric v Peugeot e-208 v Renault Zoe v Vauxhall Corsa Electric v Volkswagen e-Up

There’s no knocking Peugeot’s new 3D digital dials, though. They’re standard from Allure trim and projected onto different layers to give a three-dimensional effect that looks superb. It also displays key information clearly and is customisable so you can choose what you want to see. The e-208’s dials differ slightly from the standard car’s, displaying energy, range and charge info.

Space is more of a mixed bag. Two adults will have no problems getting comfortable in the front seats and the driver gets loads of standard manual seat and wheel adjustment. However, adults in the back seats will find their knees brushing the front seatbacks even if their heads are clear of the ceiling. Still, the e-208’s boot doesn’t shrink over the standard car’s thanks to its clever battery placement.

The e-208 powertrain comprises a 134bhp electric motor with enough poke to give the e-208 nippy performance around town, while its 50kWh battery has enough juice to travel for up to 225 miles between charges. In our own range test, we managed 161 miles, which still isn’t bad given the car’s size.

Speaking of charges, you’ll only need 30 minutes to boost the e-208’s batteries from flat to 80% charged using a fast public charge point. Charging the e-208 at home on a 7.4kW wall charger takes around seven hours and should cost you between £8 and £9 depending on your electricity tariff. It’ll save you around £15 versus the average petrol or diesel car for the same miles, too.

Traditionally-powered small cars like the Ford Fiesta will put a bigger smile on your face around corners, but versus other small EVs like the Renault Zoe, the e-208 is more fun. It steers and changes direction eagerly, which makes it great for darting through gaps in traffic.

The e-208 is a little heavier than the standard car, thanks to the weight of the batteries, and so Peugeot has stiffened the suspension a little to compensate, which means it doesn’t have the same feeling of comfort as lesser 208s over bumps.

You can also get the Peugeot e-208 with a range of driver assistance systems designed to make long trips less stressful, including a clever cruise control feature that’ll accelerate, brake and steer for you on motorways.

All-in-all the Peugeot e-208 has to be near the top of your list of test drives if you’re in the market for a small electric car.

Make sure you check out our Peugeot e-208 deal pages for the very best prices.

The Peugeot e-208 is slightly pricier than the mechanically similar Vauxhall Corsa-e, although it does offer a more stylish interior for the extra outlay. The Honda e also offers funky styling inside and out, but it costs a fair bit more and has a far shorter range than the Peugeot.

The Mini Electric is similarly stylish, with comparable pricing in base trim, although its short range and cramped rear seats limit its appeal.

For the best value we would opt for the Peugeot’s Allure Premium+ trim, one up from the base model.

Quick and responsive, the e-208 is great around town. The ride is harder than on the regular 208, though, and the brakes can take a bit of time to get used to

In town

The Peugeot e-208 is in its element around town, its responsive electric motor and nippy performance allow you to zip into gaps in traffic with ease. The regenerative braking means you don’t have to touch the brake pedal much, which is a good thing as it can feel a bit squishy at first and takes some time to get used to.

Standard rear parking sensors help when reversing into bays, although the large front pillars can obscure your view when looking at cars approaching from side roads ahead of you. Being a bit heavier than a regular 208 means that the suspension has had to be tweaked, this has made the e-208’s ride a bit more unyielding over bumps. It’s still more comfortable than the sporty Mini Electric, though.

On the motorway

The e-208 is refined and quiet at motorway speeds, it’s got enough power to overtake slower traffic and will happily cruise along at 70mph even when fully loaded. The large front pillars aren’t such an issue here, and you get cruise control, lane keep assist and driver attention warning as standard. GT trims come with the Driver Assist Pack which also includes adaptive cruise control, which is great on long motorway journeys.

On a twisty road

The e-208 steers and turns competently, but there’s not much in the way of excitement to the way it goes about it. There’s also a bit of body lean through fast corners. If an engaging driving experience is a priority, the Mini Electric is the way to go.

The e-208 is spacious up front and has decent boot space, but rear headroom is tight for taller adults

The front – as it is in most of the alternatives – is spacious enough to accommodate two adults without issue. The seats offer plenty of adjustment, and the steering wheel can be adjusted for rake and reach, which is important as it can obscure the dials in certain positions.

When it comes to your bits and bobs, the Peugeot e-208 offers generous door bins, two cupholders and a storage tray ahead of the gear lever which offers wireless phone charging on higher trims. There’s also a cubby between the front seats and a small glovebox for personal items you want to keep hidden from view.

Space in the back seats

The rear seats will fit a trio of teenagers, but taller adults may find that they have marginal head and knee room. The flat footwell makes the centre rear seat easy to slide into, even if it isn’t quite as comfy as the outer two pews. Door bins and front seatback pockets are provided as storage, and there are also two USB slots in the back to charge devices with.

Boot space

Thanks to some clever packaging, the e-208 offers the same 311 litres of space as the regular 208, and it’s way bigger than the 211 litres you get in a Mini Electric or the 171 litres that the Honda e offers. A Renault Zoe can pack in slightly more, at 338 litres.

The charging cables do take up a bit of space though, and the narrow boot opening can make it tricky to load wider items. If you need even more space, the Nissan Leaf gives you a more generous 435 litres.

Few alternatives look as fresh inside, and the material quality is decent, aside from a few hard plastics bits of trim around the cabin

The two-tier dashboard design and driver-centric angle of the infotainment unit are identical to the layout you get in the regular 208, but that’s no bad thing. The overall effect is a lot more impressive than you would expect from a small electric hatchback, and most of the materials are of a decent quality, too, aside from some cheaper feeling plastics in the lower half of the cabin.

The rest of the switchgear feels nicely made, although the touch-sensitive infotainment shortcut buttons are a bit fiddly, but you can access most of the commonly used features from the main menu instead.

A 7.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system is offered on the base Active Premium+ and Allure Premium+ trims, it comes standard with Bluetooth connectivity and DAB Radio as well as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. GT trims get a larger 10.0-inch unit which also includes sat-nav. Both units offer sharp graphics and are easy enough to use, however the smallish buttons can be hard to press while on the move.

The Peugeot’s USP is its cool 3D digital dials. You get it from the Allure Premium+ trim as standard, and it projects information on three different layers to create a 3D effect that helps it literally and figuratively stand out from the displays found in other cars of this size and price. The display is customisable and offers up additional information on the state of charge and range in the e-208.

You get one power choice here, so the choice is made for you. It’s a good one though, producing 134bhp and sending it to the front tyres through a single-speed transmission. It’s one of the quicker small electric cars around, completing the 0-60mph sprint in 8.1 seconds, slightly behind the Mini Electric (7.3 seconds) but it outpaces the Renault Zoe (9.5 seconds) and is a shade quicker than the Honda e.

Its 50kWh battery pack promises 225 miles between charges, which is more than most alternatives excepting the over-achieving Renault Zoe which manages 238 miles. It’s pretty efficient too, managing a decent 3.9 miles/kWh versus the 3.5 miles/kWh the Renault Zoe and Honda e can manage.

However, in our own tests, completing mostly motorway miles, we saw just 161 miles from the e-208. That's 74% of its capacity, which is well down on other cars in the same test, such as the Honda e and Renault Zoe, which went more than 90% of their claimed range. (The MINI Electric went beyond its official figures!)

Charging times from 0-100% can take as long as 24 hours if you use a standard three-pin plug, however, a 7.4kW wallbox will do the same job in just seven and a half hours. A public fast charger will get you from 0-80% in just half an hour. The ability to charge at 100kW is a bonus for the e-208, as the Renault Zoe and Mini Electric are both limited to a maximum charge speed of 50kW.

The Peugeot e-208 has no road tax cost and the company car Benefit-in-Kind (BIK) tax rate is low. You are also exempt from congestion charge fees in low emissions zones.

The Peugeot 208 went through Euro NCAP testing in 2019, scoring four out of five stars overall. Despite missing out on all five stars, it scored an impressive 91% for adult occupant safety and 86% for child occupant safety. The low 56% score for protecting vulnerable road users was what let it down.

All Peugeot e-208 models come standard with rear parking sensors, lane keep assist, driver attention warning, active brake assist and cruise control.

Adaptive cruise control and lane position assist are available on the top GT Premium trim and optional on all but the base Active Premium+ model. You also get a reversing camera on the Allure Premium+ trim and front and rear parking sensors on the top GT trims.

Peugeot has fared well as a company in recent customer satisfaction surveys, with the regular 208 achieving mod-field results overall. The e-208 is relatively new to the market so there hasn’t been enough time to build up a picture of its long-term reliability, but in general, electric cars tend to have fewer issues than their more mechanically complicated petrol and diesel stablemates.

Peugeot offers its standard three-year/60,000-mile warranty for the e-208, with the battery pack covered by a separate eight-year/100,000-mile warranty. All pretty standard fare, as is the option to extend the standard warranty by a few more years as long as the vehicle is under 10 years old and has covered under 100,000-miles.