Peugeot 3008 Plug-in Hybrid: Nicey but pricey

What is it?

It’s a mouthful, that’s for sure.

And the Peugeot 3008 GT Sport Plug-In Hybrid AWD has got some extra zeros to go with it.

Maybe a few too many for just 60km of charge-it-up, electric only range and a fuel consumption figure of 1.6L/100km?

To get that 1.6L/100km, one needs to pull over and recharge the car after every 60km travelled — to in effect reset the consumption clock.

What’s it cost?

At $84,790 plus on roads, the plug-in hybrid makes no sense, not if you’re motive for buying it is to save money on fuel.

You could pay $63,431 for a standard GT Sport, with a turbocharged 1.6-litre engine and the $20,000 you’d pocket would buy a heck of a lot of fuel.

But, be that as it may, Peugeot believes it has a business case for the car, or it simply wouldn’t be offered for sale in the first place.

The 3008 plug-in hybrid is a well equipped car and it would want to be for the price.

You get partial leather and twin-zone climate air with rear seat air vents, Lime Wood dash and door trim, blue ambient cabin lighting, heated front seats, a power-adjust driver’s seat with massage plus keyless entry and push-button start.

The instrument panel is digital and fully customisable, a 360-degree camera, parking sensors front and rear, semi-autonomous parking assist (90 degree and parallel), adaptive cruise control with stop and go, automatic high beam, speed sign recognition and recommendation and hands-free tailgate.

A $2500 sunroof is also standard.

Infotainment consists of 10.0-inch infotainment touchscreen, with Bluetooth, voice recognition, built-in satellite navigation, DAB+ digital radio, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone mirroring.

Until recently it also came with a premium 10-speaker, 515-watt Focal sound system, but due to supply problems this is temporarily unavailable.

There’s three 12V sockets (dashboard, rear cabin and load area), with a single USB Type A socket for the front and another two for the back seat.

Five-star safety includes six airbags and the latest-generation automatic emergency braking (AEB) that detects pedestrians and cyclists in low light conditions, and operates between 5km/h and 140km/h.

There’s also driver warning alert, active blind spot monitoring and lane keeping assistance with detection of roadsides.

Isofix child seat mounts are located on the outboard seats.

The plug-in hybrid comes with a mode two charging cable, supplied with the vehicle at time of delivery (Note the bag for the cable is an $87 accessory).

Cost of service is fixed for the first five scheduled services, with 20,000km service intervals, which comes to $3108 for 5 years/60,000km.

The 3008 is covered by a 5-year unlimited kilometre warranty, with 8 years or 160,000km for the battery.

What’s it go like?

The plug-in hybrid features a 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol engine, two electric motors and a 13.2kWh battery.

The petrol engine is good for 147kW of power at 6000 rpm and 300Nm of torque at 3000 rpm.

Of note, the same engine is detuned for its role in the petrol only GT where it produces 133kW.

The electric motor that drives the front wheels delivers 81kW at 2500 and 320Nm from 500-2500 rpm, while the motor for the rear axle adds another 83kW at 14,000 rpm and 166Nm from 0-4760 rpm.

They’re the individual figures. Together the system pumps out a combined output of 222kW and 520Nm.

No. You don’t get the whole lot, but they are impressive figures nevertheless and drive is transmitted to all four wheels through an eight-speed automatic transmission which has a wet, multi-plate clutch to manage input from the three different power sources.

Fuel consumption, which is supposedly what it is all about, is a claimed 1.6L/100km from a 43-litre tank, and it produces 36.4 g/km of CO2.

The dash from 0-100km/h takes a rapid 5.9 seconds.

Charging from zero per cent to full capacity takes about five and a half hours using a 2.3kW Mode 2 cable and offers 60km (WLTP) of emissions free, pure electric drive.

That’s enough we’re told to take care of the daily commute, that is if you live within 30km of work. If you’re lucky enough to have access to a charger, it’s 60km each way.

After the battery runs out it’s back to good old petrol power until you get a chance to recharge the car.

On that point, you don’t need to rush home and recharge the car every night — or at any time if you don’t want to. It’s not going to grind to a halt.

But you do need to recharge the car if you want to get the promised 1.6L/100km of official fuel consumption.

In fact, it can only ever achieve this figure when the battery is fully charged and you must recharge the battery every 100km to keep getting this figure.

Peugeot says charging the battery regularly or simply overnight is recommended to experience the benefits of the electric driving capabilities.

There’s one caveat to this, the system does pull some power from regenerative braking and seems to keep some charge in reserve.

Bear in mind too that as charging is capped at 3.7kW, you’re not going to see much benefit from using a public charger (or even a home wall charger for that matter).

In our week with the car we were getting 6.8L/100km after 400km which is pretty good, even with little help from the battery.

The batteries et al add about 415kg of weight to the car, which tips the scales at 1815kg.

You’d think that would put a dent in performance and it probably does, but not that you’d notice.

The one thing we can say without reservation about the 3008 plug-in hybrid is that it goes like stink — regardless of whether you recharge it or not.

The battery pack which sits under the boot and back seat reduces the amount of load space available, from 591 to 529 litres with the rear seat in place , and from 1670 to 1529 litres with the rear set folded — a difference of 62 litres.

Sitting on darkened, 19-inch multi-spoke alloys with plenty of black bits, the car looks amazing and confirms the French know a thing or two about style.

The detail in the complex front design with its dark chrome grille is exceptional and integrates striking LED lighting unlike anything else you might have seen, especially at night.

Inside, quilted Nappa leather seats with their contrast stitching look top shelf, but we found them a little small and uncomfortable.

One of the hallmarks of the brand is its tiny steering wheels and high-mounted instrument cluster, designed to replace the need for a head-up display.

The big touchscreen looks impressive, but much of the screen area is given over to climate controls which means the navigation map is quite small.

There’s gear change paddles and four drive modes to go with the 222kW/520Nm and as you can imagine it gets mobile.

Ride and handling is pretty good for a car that has not benefited from local tuning, but this has always been Peugeot’s forte which made its own suspension (not sure if it still does).

The small steering wheel might be a bit of a seachange, however, and takes some getting used to, and the gear change is a bit fiddly.

A standard Euro-style cruise control stalk is of course impossible to see once you’re up and running. Guess it’s something the French are born knowing how to use?

Default drive mode is electric which means it uses up the battery first.

You can with a very light foot get it up to 135km/h in electric mode, but this is probably downhill with no pressure on the system.

The B transmission setting increases regenerative braking and ideally this is for use on long downhill runs.

Otherwise there is no regenerative adjustment.

Hybrid mode switches between the electric and petrol engines depending on your driving style.

Sport gives you both power sources at once, while AWD mode as its name suggests delivers four-wheel traction at low and medium speeds, and is particularly suitable for control on challenging terrain.

The MyPeugeot app provides access the owner’s handbook online, service and maintenance schedules, as well as fuel tank levels and
odometer readings.

You can even check where you parked or plan a trip, then send that information to the car navigation system.

What we like?

• Looks gorgeous
• French flair
• Spirited performance
• Lots of geeky stuff
• Electric only option

What we don’t like?

• Costs too much
• Fiddly gear change
• Obscured cruise control stalk
• Not enough electric only range
• Charge cable takes up boot space
• Limited rear legroom
• Puncture repair kit instead of  spare

The bottom line?

The Peugeot 3008 GT Sport Plug-In Hybrid AWD certainly lifts the bar for the French car maker.

But at $80K it’s a big ask and there’s plenty of competition around the same price that will probably see better resale value.

The problem will be convincing buyers that the 3008 is as good if not better than the competition and that has been the ongoing challenge for Peugeot for as long as we can remember.

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