Remember the olden days, when an average family car had about 70hp, and reaching the legal motorway speed limit was a genuine challenge.
Honestly, try to accelerate in a MkIV Volkswagen Golf 1.4-litre from the early 2000s and if you were facing the wrong way, the rotation of the planet would actually result in a net loss of speed. Still, we were happy, eh?
Now, though? The power outputs of even humble family cars have ballooned in a quite ridiculous way. The basic version of the Volvo EX30, for instance, has a 272hp electric motor which makes it almost exactly as powerful as a 1991 Honda NSX. Which was a supercar. With pop-up headlights and everything.
I know cars have become heavier and humans have become bigger since then (well, I certainly have) and I know also that the more power – actually the more torque, specifically – that an electric motor delivers, the more energy it can regenerate under braking, which counter-intuitively makes it more efficient, but even so I reckon the main reason cars have become so much more powerful is simply because they can be. Like computing power, engine (and e-motor) power is cheaper now than ever.
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Which is possibly why I find this new Peugeot 5008 a breath of – very gentle – fresh air. Note that I did not say E-5008, for while there is indeed an all-electric version of this car, with a decent 502km range, it also has 210hp, and that seems to me like rather a lot for a family car – even a big heavy one.
This, though, is the hybrid version of the Peugeot 5008, and it has a mere 136hp, thanks to a tiny three-cylinder 1.2-litre engine backed up by the dinkiest little electric motor you ever did see. It also has a mere 230Nm of torque, all of which has to shift 1,700-odd kilos of car, and then the weight of the humans that you’re going to insert into it. With seats for seven, that’s a lot of potential weight to haul around.
So, the new 5008 is slow. Well, perhaps that’s unfair. The 5008 Hybrid 136 e-DCS6 (to give this car its full and correct title) can accelerate from 0-100km/h in 11.3 seconds, the sort of ferocious and feral acceleration of which my dad’s 1.6 L Ford Sierra could only have imagined, even when I tried to write the word “Cosworth” in laundry marker on the boot lid.
These days 11.3 seconds feels pretty languid, but that’s just dandy by me. Personally, I’m tiring quickly of cars, electric cars, especially, boasting ever-higher power outputs and synapse-speed acceleration. So you can hit 100km/h in 3.2 seconds. Great. And where do you store the mop to clean up all the vomit?
The 5008 is, let’s not forget, a French car. True, it’s a product of the increasingly embattled Stellantis Group, which also includes other French brands, plus a German one, plus a British one, plus some Italians and even a few Americans, and they can all use the same hybrid-and-electric STLA medium chassis that lies under the 5008’s imposing coachwork.
Yet, for all that internationality, the 5008 feels ineffably French. After all, French roads these days have low speed limits. Most main roads are limited to 90km/h, and many are held down to 80km/h and even 70km/h. The only roads with higher limits are the endless Autoroutes with their 130km/h speed limits, but they have the space and time for you to gently wind the 5008 up to that kind of velocity.
At lower speeds, the 5008 just lopes along in what is a very French manner indeed. It’s comfortable and soothing, although you can feel the back end of the car getting a bit wobbly when no one’s sitting in row three, almost like a pickup truck that just won’t settle down when it’s unladen.
However, anyone who remembers the softly roly-poly suspension of the old Peugeot 505 won’t be surprised nor dismayed by this. You can always throw a case of good wine in the boot to stabilise things, anyway.
Speaking of thirst, Peugeot claims an official fuel economy of 5.8 litres per 100km, and you should get fairly close to that, even if the wrong side of 6.0 litres per 100km is probably more likely most of the time.
Whether there’s wine in it or not, that boot is massive. Fold down the extra seats, and there’s a whopping 916 litres of boot volume. Even with all seats in use, there’s still a useful 348 litres left, and when all the back seats are folded flat the 5008 does a decent impression of a delivery van, with 2,232 litres. An expensive delivery van, though – even in this basic (but well-equipped) Allure form, it’s on the wrong side of €50,000.
The only problem is that for all that volume, space still isn’t distributed quite as you’d like it to be. If you want to get anyone other than very, very small children in the third row, you’ll have to slide the middle-row seats forward, and that compromises the legroom of the people sitting there. If the 5008 was a big monospace MPV instead of a long-bonnet SUV, then the space might be better laid out, but alas, that boat has long since sailed. At least there’s considerably more space in the back than in the 5008’s sister car, the slightly cramped 3008.
[ Test drive: the Peugeot E-3008 electric SUV-coupe is a long-range surpriseOpens in new window ]
In the front, the driver’s seat is gloriously comfy, and the big, slim sweep of the digital dashboard looks impressive. The on-screen software is at least as irritating as it is in most cars these days, but it’s tolerable, and the integration of Apple Maps into the driver’s display when you’re using CarPlay is helpful.
The only problem is the steering wheel. Generally, I get on fine with Peugeot’s tiny, hexagonal steering wheel, even if others find it irritating. Here in the 5008, though, it just feels… wrong. This is a languid, easy-going car, not a go-kart, so having a small wheel that rewards short, darty steering movements just seems ill-considered. Maybe Peugeot could finally make an exception to the small wheel rule and give the 5008 a full-sized round wheel?
As with an MPV body shape, that seems sadly unlikely these days. Yet the 5008’s space, comfort and usefulness are enough for you to allow it some forgiveness. And now, just sit back, relax and watch the world spool gently by…
Lowdown: Peugeot 5008 Hybrid 136 e-DCS6 Allure
Power: 1.2-litre three-cylinder turbo petrol engine with 15.6kW motor and 0.4kWh lithium-ion battery producing 136hp and 230Nm of torque and powering the front wheels via a six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.
CO2 emissions (annual motor tax): 130g/km (€200).
Fuel consumption: 5.8l/100km (WLTP)
0-100km/h: 9.4 secs.
Price: €50,995 as tested, 5008 starts from €50,995
Verdict: Rolls softly and slowly along, and is massively spacious inside. Good quality too, but watch the price.
