Citroen e-C3 Aircross review: All-electric Family SUV That Offers Great Value

The Independent

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00:00I'm going to let you into a little secret here. The Fowler family car used to be a Citroen C3

00:06Aircross. Now it did the job perfectly well but it was never really a car we fell in love with.

00:13I guess you'd just call it cheap and cheerful. This is the all-new Citroen C3 Aircross and

00:19straight away it looks a whole lot more purposeful, more SUV-like with a beefier,

00:24more rugged design and it's bigger too. In fact in some versions it's big enough to fit

00:28seven seats inside.

00:38The other big news is that the Citroen C3 Aircross has gone electric. In fact you can have a C3 Aircross

00:44in three different flavours. You can have petrol, you can have petrol hybrid or you can have this

00:49electric version which is badged EC3 as it should be. Now let's just take this style in for a little

00:56while shall we? This car is inspired by the wacky Citroen Olli concept of a couple of years ago.

01:02We love it when Citroen goes wacky don't we? Things are toned down for production obviously they always

01:08are but you've got a lovely big Citroen Chevron here you've got chunky alloys down the side some

01:13rather unique and individualistic rear lights again pure Citroen and you can even personalize the C3

01:19aircross with these colour clips that are in the bumpers down here and back on the C pillars. Now I

01:27reckon the Fowler family is going to quite like the looks of this car so thumbs up so far but let's have

01:32a look inside. The C3 aircross is much bigger than before which means a bigger boot too. So in here you

01:40have got 460 litres of space and that will grow to 1600 litres if you fold the rear seats down you've got

01:47this thing here which you can make it deeper as well but that's not too bad I reckon that's pretty dog

01:54friendly and a good few suitcases so yeah family friendly too. I'm not a natural back seat passenger

02:04one thing I like about this car is the doors open really wide which you should fit the kids in a

02:10child's seat that's really important nice deep windows as well but the bottom line is I am just

02:15under six feet tall and this seat is exactly where it was when I was driving loads of headroom because

02:21of the new big square shape of the C3 aircross good knee room loads of spaces to put things there's a

02:26pocket there there's another pocket there there's a couple of USB sockets down there so I think your

02:32family is going to be quite happy in the bag of the C3 aircross let's have a look at the front.

02:40I think the interior here is quite clever because this is clearly a budget car a lot of the plastics

02:45if I tap them they're quite cheap but they've warmed it up with a lovely piece of material across the dash

02:51and it's kind of leatherette on the doors which is quite nice good storage so big door bins for your

02:57your water down here and there's storage in there a couple of cup holders and I really like this kind

03:05of small oval steering wheel and the high set instruments there a little bit kind of Peugeot like

03:13so that's good 10.25 inch touchscreen is good and praise the lord we've got separate controls here for

03:20the heating and ventilation so you don't have to delve into the touchscreen to try and get yourself

03:25a bit warmer heated seats in this car too so Mrs Fowler's going to be very happy but what's this car

03:31like to drive let's get out on the road shall we

03:38so I've driven a C3 in the UK and was really impressed with it how comfortable it was

03:43and yes the C3 Aircross unsurprisingly follows that theme Citroen Advanced Comfort so nice big squishy

03:52seats and clever pneumatic bump stops on the suspension system which ultimately just means

03:58it's a comfortable ride but let's start with some numbers the battery in this car is a 44 kWh battery

04:05not huge which means the range is 188 miles that's not great is it there is I'm reliably told going to

04:15be a bigger battery version which will be more expensive obviously which may well go 250 miles or

04:20more but 188 miles for now the only thing I would say is when we had a C3 Aircross we didn't do stints of

04:27188 miles in that car that car probably barely did 188 miles in a week so it may well do absolutely

04:35fine now we're very lucky as well we have off street parking and a charger at home but if you don't

04:41this car will fast charge at a reasonably fast speed 100 kilowatts is its fastest charging speed

04:46which means it'll charge from 20 to 80 percent in 26 minutes everything I said about the C3 Aircross

04:54the EC3 Aircross has to be taken in context electric cars are expensive aren't they hmm think again so the EC3

05:03Aircross is actually cheaper as an electric car than as a hybrid really that's the truth this car

05:11starts at 22 900 pounds for the plus version rising to 24 990 pounds for the max version which comes

05:22really nicely equipped even with those heated seats I think that's pretty good value if you like your 0-60

05:28or 0-62 times this car takes 12.9 seconds so it's not exactly quick like some electric cars what I love

05:38about this car it's all about comfort it is really comfortable it rides really really well these are

05:44great Spanish roads we've driven on some pretty awful ones while we've been testing the car

05:48as well and it rides really really nicely beeps at you a little too often but it does ride really

05:55nicely there's good visibility I mentioned the deep windows in the back nice big door mirrors and good

06:00view out the back and there's a this touch screen here there's a good clear reversing camera so really

06:06I think the EC3 Aircross is a very comfortable and calming car to drive which is really handy if you've got

06:14noisy kids in the back this car has not been honed with an intimate slide from around the Nürburgring

06:20in Germany yeah the steering is fine it's direct it's not much feedback and the car will lean a little

06:26bit as you go through corners but it's not a sports car it's a family SUV and for that it's perfectly right

06:33so you can get a C3 Aircross in May this year and our car lease finishes in June this year so

06:39would the Fowler family be interested in the new C3 Aircross well it's way better than the old car

06:44it's it's bigger it drives better it's electric but what I like most of all it's just so comfortable

06:52it's a really easy comfortable car to live with and isn't that what you want from your next car

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