Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4 review
by David Finlay (25 January 2012)
However good a car the Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4 may be or, come to that, may not be, it has a secure place in history as being the first of its type ever to be put into production. It's not even close to being the first hybrid, but it is the first to combine an electric motor with a diesel- rather than a petrol-fuelled engine.
And that's not all. Until now, all hybrids have had both power sources driving through the front axle. Peugeot has adopted a different approach. It has fitted a conventional - though, for a hybrid, surprisingly powerful - 163bhp two-litre turbo diesel under the bonnet, from where it drives the front wheels only, and devoted the electric motor, which produces up to 37bhp, entirely to driving the rears. Control systems dictate which is used when, and to what extent, but there is no mechanical connection between them.
(This is not entirely new. There have been competition cars with engines at each end, and Citroen actually went into production with a four-wheel drive version of the 2CV called the Sahara which had one engine and gearbox at the front axle and another completely separate one at the rear. But I think Peugeot is the first to use two fundamentally different power units in this arrangement.)
The way the engine and motor operate is partly driver-controlled via a rotary control on the centre console (pictured). This has four modes, as follows:
In Auto, the car makes its own decisions, with economy as a priority. Maximum output of the motor is kept down to 27bhp.
in Sport, the engine and motor operate constantly for maximum performance, while the gearchanges are quicker and happen when the engine is revving higher than it's allowed to in Auto. This is the only mode in which the full 37bhp potential of the motor is unleashed.
In ZEV (for Zero-Emissions Vehicle), the motor does all the work, reducing diesel consumption to zero as long as there's enough juice in the battery pack. If there isn't, the car resets itself to Auto, as it also does if you either exceed 40mph or ask for more acceleration than the motor can provide on its own.
Finally, in 4x4, the engine and motor work together, as in Sport, but this time with a view to providing the best traction off-road. In this mode, an alternator ensures that there is always some charge in the battery pack so that the motor doesn't suddenly give up and leave you with drive to the front wheels only.
All of this allows Peugeot to create an SUV which has four-wheel drive and a maximum power output of 200bhp, yet is extraordinarily economical and cheap to tax. Well, as long as you buy the right one, that is. The right one is called the 99g, after the amount of CO2 it officially emits per kilometre.
It costs £26,995, £3000 more than the most expensive conventional 3008, but running costs are potentially very low thanks to its 74.4mpg combined economy and exemption from annual Vehice Excise Duty payments. You can drive it into the London congestion charge zone without paying, and if you're a business customer the Benefit In Kind tax rate is just 10%, without the usual 3% mark-up for diesel cars since diesel is in this case not the only fuel. The entire list price can also be offset against tax in the first year.
For £28,495 you can have the 104g, which comes with the NG4 Media Navigation system comprising satellite navigation, a phone kit, Bluetooth connectivity and a 10GB hard drive for music storage (also available as an extra-cost option on the 99g). Furthermore, it has 17" wheels, rather than the 16s of the cheaper model, and these raise the CO2 emissions - as you've already guessed - to 104g/km.
The 104g takes the shine off the HYbrid4's "low running costs" claim to some extent. With this one you have to pay VED (admittedly only £20 of it) from year two onwards, the London congestion charge is the same as it would be if you were driving a Hummer, and although BIK is still at 10% for now it will rise to 11% in the 2012/13 tax year. These are not enormous differences, but they're worth bearing in mind as you wonder whether you can bear to be seen in a car with 16" wheels.
All HYbrid4s that Peugeot has so far made available to the UK media have been of the 104g type, but it's fair to assume that they feel about the same as the 99g ones. And I have to say that, while I admire the technology, I don't think much of the car.
The most objectionable feature is, unfortunately, one that Peugeot is quite proud of. The rear suspension isn't the same as used on other cars sharing this platform, but comes from some versions of the 508. I was told, before driving the car, that it improves the handling and ride quality, but to me the handling is clumsy and the ride dreadful - certainly among the worst of any SUV I've experienced in recent years.
To help the fuel economy and CO2 emissions, Peugeot has fitted its EGC single-clutch automated manual gearbox (not the same as the twin-clutch system known by other manufacturers as DSG, S line, SST or what have you). Many companies - among them Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Maserati and smart - have employed this in the past and not a single one of them has been able to do anything about the yawning gap in performance during gearchanges.
With the 3008 HYbrid 4 things aren't quite so bad, because during those changes the electric motor comes into play, and that does help. But the power output of the motor is so low that it only really works when you're using only a small proportion of the engine's power, for example in city traffic. Under harder acceleration the reduction and resumption of performance are still very noticeable.
(A more minor point about EGC: the gear selector works in more or less the same way as that of a conventional automatic would, except that if you put it in the furthest-forward position you haven't selected Park, because there isn't a setting for that, but Reverse. I don't think I need to emphasise the importance of not forgetting this.)
The 200bhp maximum output sounds impressive, but the HYbrid4 is the heaviest 3008 by a considerable margin, and its 118mph top speed and its 0-62mph time of 9.1 seconds are beaten by the admittedly much less economical 156bhp 1.6-litre petrol turbo version. 200bhp seems to be required not so much to make it really fast as to give it half-decent performance, though the way it lumbers through corners I'm not sure I'd want any more power than it already has.
As for the four-wheel drive business, there's no point in claiming that this improves the handling, since the power split is so front-biased. This is by a very long way the least sporty 4x4 on the market to have as much as 163bhp shared between the front wheels.
Peugeot provided the opportunity for journalists to drive the HYbrid4 off-road on the UK media launch, but the course was so tame that an RCZ could have got round most of it. The most significant benefit - a useful if not a major one - is that this model should be able to ease away gently from rest on a muddy or snowy surface which would leave any other 3008 floundering.
The HYbrid4 system, new and radical as it is at the moment, will become increasingly common. Its second appearance, in the 508 RXh, isn't far off, and it will be used in a version of the 508 saloon before the end of 2012. Peugeot's sister company Citroen will also have a HYbrid4 car on the market in the near future.
So this 3008 won't be the only production diesel-electric hybrid in the world for long, but it will always be the first. I hope it won't also turn out to be the best, though apart from the suspension I don't see much room for improvement in the ones that are to follow. Perhaps the most we'll be able to say about any of them - and of course it's no small thing - is that they are very economical for their size.
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