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Peugeot 208 P21 is like a Miss High School. Beautiful, but tight. Or beautiful AND tight. Is it worth your money tho?

Go ahead and laugh at me, but the Peugeot 208 P21 is a properly executed electric car, less so from the perspective of price, but we're getting there. But if you don't want to read more because you're still thinking about Miss High School when you were a freshman, then it's ok. I'll leave you at it.

But if you're not thinking about Miss High School because you know that Laquesha would never look at someone like you, so you've resigned yourself and wonder "how's Laquesha doing today??", then let's talk about the Peugeot 208, which it's actually the Stellantis 208. Sure, it was launched in 2019 and Stellantis was born in 2021, but the Peugeot 208 P21 was the basis of many Stellantis projects that they were going to come and it was a radical departure from the previous generation of 208, a correctly executed but boring car. So they had to go back to eating garlic sticks and dubious sexuality, and the 208 came quickly as probably the most beautiful supermini at the moment. And it also brought along its cousin, the Vauxhall Corsa, with which it shares the platform, engines and almost everything underneath, except that the 208 looks better, so you have to pay a few thousand more than the Corsa.

So, the Peugeot 208 is one of the main cars in the French offensive, cars you buy for the way they look and not necessarily for their reliability, basically we're back to the basics. 

What were you saying about electric?

Ah, yes. The 208 comes with a 1.2 turbocharged petrol that you don't want, a 1.5 diesel that doesn't match the city character of the car, a 180 hp 1.6 hybrid for which you'll pay the equivalent of 2-3 2010 Cayennes and which will break your legs in an orthopedic experiment, just as Vinnie Jones breaks the legs of the unlucky ones who enter the cage with him, and the electric version, the e-208. And I was surprised (I was going to say totally shocked) when I saw that there was also an e-208 with ridesharing company stickers on the car. At the time I wrote this literary calamity, the Peugeot e-208 started at 35,500 euros without any kind of discount, so you can lower it to 25-30,000 euros because I'm sure there will be some incentives and discounts available in your country. I don't know what deals they have over at Peugeot, I'm not paid by them or by anyone basically, so you will have to do the research yourself.

I talked more about the electric version in the Opel Corsa review, and yes, the electric Corsa starts at 31,500 euros without discounts, so you can leave with an electric Corsa for 21-22,000 euros, which is dangerously close to ICE versions. But for 3000 euros more you can look at an e-208 and not a Corsa-e. In any case, both for the Corsa and for the 208, the difference between the hybrid and fully electric engines is under 3000 euros and this is where the questions start.

And what questions, because currently both on autotrader and on mobile.de, approximately 25% of 208s are electric, which is alot for a car in general, not just a supermini. And I looked at these two sites because we are on Autodrivel and here we are not talking about cars bought by us, but cars bought by others from us and then bought by us. So yes, with a budget of 15,000 euros you can buy a Peugeot e-208 from 2020-2021, with 50-70,000 km. Now that we know this, we look at Peugeot and see that they offer a warranty of 8 years or 160,000 km, whichever comes first, for the electric drive train. Basically, if you bought a Peugeot e-208 from 2021 with 70,000 km, you still have a warranty of 4 more years and another 90,000 km left. And if your battery dies right after the warranty expires, and even if it costs you 10,000 euros, you still won because you paid 10,000 euros less for the car than new. The only real loss here will be the resale value of the car, which will hit you the same way it hit the person who bought it new.

Plus, here there is a ample discussion like the bust of Sofia Vergara, but there are already companies that don't replace the entire battery, only the faulty cells in the battery, and the costs are kept at a much more humane level. So who knows what the future will bring, but technology is progressing. In any case, with a used Peugeot 208 electric you can enjoy the horrible depreciation of electric cars, you can enjoy a few years of warranty and when you replace the batteries you will still be better off.

And why do I say that only the e-208 is a properly executed city car?

Technically, they are both e-208 and Corsa-e, but they are essentially the same car and we are in the Peugeot 208 review. I say about the e-208 that it is a properly executed electric car because the general problem with electric cars is range. Actually, let me rephrase that. The general problems of electric cars are autonomy and price. On the price side, the e-208 and Corsa-e are quite close to the regular versions, if you get discounts and incentives and grants, a trend I see from more and more manufacturers - the electric version costs a little more or even costs the same as the regular version.

And in this case, the only remaining hemorrhoid is autonomy, but there is also Hemoroeasy, 30 compressed tablets. I say this because an e-208 is strictly a city car, and this is where electric cars shine. First of all, they have greater range than on long journeys because they recover energy from braking. Secondly, even in the worst conditions, the battery lasts a week and you can charge it over the weekend. I repeat, in the worst conditions, -20 degrees and heat running full clock. Plus, you can always find the charging infrastructure, if you don't have the possibility to leave your car at home. And finally, the Peugeot 208 P21 was designed from the start to accommodate an electric version so you don't lose space at all. Not that you would have anywhere to lose space anyway.

Peugeot 208 P21 Engines

Petrol

• 1.0 FireFly of 70 horsepower - Available only for the South American market, this 1.0 naturally aspirated petrol is carried over from Fiat and is a decent engine for what it is. After all, the supermini segment over there is dominated by naturally aspirated 1.0 petrols. But enough about the engine, on to the rest of the car as the South American 208 is fairly different from the european 208. Higher ground clearance, higher approach angle, larger fuel tank, bigger rear seats, less options, less aluminium and more steel, that kind of thing. So it's cheaper and more adequate for worse quality roads.


• 1.0 FireFly turbo of 130 horsepower - By May 2022 the South American 208 received also the turbocharged version of the FireFly and I'm not sold on it as the naturally aspirated version is adequate enough and it keeps the price down.


• 1.2 EB2FA of 74 horsepower - No. Maybe the lower prices will grab your eyes and money upon purchase, but they will also take away your money when you have to replace the timing chain every 50 meters traveled. Or maybe even the crankshaft as the very first units had crankshaft play. Some of them were replaced under warranty, some of them were replaced by the owners, some of them weren't replaced at all.


• 1.2 EBADTD turbo of 100 horsepower - Same issues, but turbocharged. The engine, not the issues.


• 1.6 EC5F of 114 horsepower - Another South America exclusive, but this is even more exclusive, as it was sold only in Argentina. An old school naturally aspirated unit, which is reliable as long as you feed it the occasional oil, spark plug or coilpack. Nothing new, nothing great, nothing terrible. Worth buying. And it also comes in Flex-Fuel flavor.

Diesel

• 1.5 DV5 of 100 horsepower - Like a chav raging at you from an Astra H, this engine is a lot of noise and little performance. Plus it had timing chain issues at launch and the 208 is not a long-distance car anyway. And you can't really use it in the city anyway as you'll quickly clog everything, from the DPF to the injectors.


• 1.6 DV6 of 92 horsepower - If some of the petrol engines were South America exclusive, the old 1.6 HDi was Morocco exclusive. Sure, it had a terrible start in life, but nowadays it has most of it's issues sorted out. 

Electric

Electric motor of 136 and 154 horsepower - The range of the 136 horsepower version is 250 km, the 154 one comes with a larger battery and range of 400 km. I did my homework, and in winter conditions, where you use the heat pump to the maximum and make frequent stops, you have an range of approximately 150 km, and if you use it around town in the summer, without putting the heat pump to work, you have up to 530 km of range. And take care to keep the battery between 50 and 80%, never at 100% and ideally never use fast charging.

Peugeot 208 P21 Reliability Issues

• The start/stop system is not optimized and drains your battery if you're using it intensively as I used Hemoroeasy.


• You don't have physical buttons and knobs for the climate control, sou you'll have to navigate on the infotainment system whilst driving and good luck with that.


• Modest visibility. Yes, with a Peugeot 208 P21 you are very visible from the outside because it looks very good and is quite exclusive, but you have no visibility to the outside. The windshield is for children, the steering wheel is for children, the rear window is for children. What did Peugeot want to say with this 208??


• And as I said about visibility for children, the whole car is for children because it is very cramped, especially in the back. It's a tight car inside. Like Miss High School.

Peugeot 208 P1 Verdict

It's hard for me to believe that I wrote 1900 words about the Peugeot 208 P21, an unexpectedly good car, which surprised the car market more than Mason Greenwood and Phil Foden were surprised in hotel rooms, with other people's women. So I won't hold you back any longer and I remain at the conclusion that the Peugeot 208 is one of the best electric city cars at the moment. 

Which engines do I recommend? The electric motor, which until 2023 came with 136 horsepower and 250 km range when new, and after 2023 came with 154 horsepower and up to 530 km of autonomy. And if you're from South America, the 70 horsepower, naturally aspirated 1.0 FireFly is just right.