Citroen e-Berlingo review

• What is it?
• How many Berlingos have there been? 
• What are the problems with the electric Berlingo?
• Does the Berlingo really have loads of space inside?
• How does the e-Berlingo drive? 
• Our choice from the range
• What's the verdict?
• What is it like to drive?
• Is it comfortable then?
• Is it easy to drive? 
• What is it like on the inside?
• Does it feel cheap inside?
• What about rear space? 
• What should I be paying?
• What are the options like? 
• Any issues? 
• What about rivals? 

Overview

What is it?

This is the Citroen e-Berlingo – that little ‘e’ stands for electricity, but more on that in a moment. In a stroke of mild genius, the Berlingo was the first van-based car on the market back in 1996, bringing a noisy lack of refinement but immense practicality and loads of space to the family market. It lured people in with bright interiors, sliding doors and did we mention loads of space? It had loads of space.

How many Berlingos have there been? 

Over 1.5 million since the car was first launched 26 years ago, but you meant how many generations. The third iteration of the Berlingo was revealed in 2018 – roomier, rounder, more refined – but the biggest change in the car’s history was the decision by the grands fromages in Paris to ditch all of the internal combustion engines from the range at the beginning of 2022. It’s a move that has polarised Berlingo fans, but the technology suits the car in a lot of ways, even if there are some obvious drawbacks.

What are the problems with the electric Berlingo?

Well, the electric drive is all as you’d expect – the 134bhp e-motor offers a reasonable but not excessive amount of power, so you’re not scrabbling the front wheels everywhere. Citroen has gone all in with comfortable cars these days, remember. The issue is the comparatively small 50kWh battery – it needs a larger option to improve the headline range figure.

Official WLTP is around 170–180 miles, which is obviously going to be a lot lower in practice. Something over 200 miles of real world range would give you the confidence you need to really use the Berlingo as it should be used. Still, when it does come to charging you can at least do it at 100kW if you can find a rapid charger capable (the standard onboard charger is 7kW). Just remember that you can’t open the left rear sliding door while you’ve got the car plugged in…

The other issue is that the Berlingo makes sense as a cheap-as-chips bit of family transport that can take a beating, but electric power tips it well over £30k and you’re still left with a budget interior. Sure, it’s tough to find an EV with this amount of space at this price, but it doesn’t compare well to something with a petrol or diesel engine. Plenty of secondhand Berlingos on the market, of course.

Does the Berlingo really have loads of space inside?

There are two options of e-Berlingo available to you – the 4.4m long M version, and the 4.75m long XL version. M brings you five seats and XL offers you seven. There’s plenty of space for passengers and everyone will be comfortable enough (in the seven-seater you could even shove adults in the very back for short journeys), but those two configurations mean varying luggage capacities.

The M has a seats up boot capacity of 775 litres, boosted to 3,000 litres with all the seats folded flat. The XL offers you 209 litres with all seven seats in place, though the rearmost two can be folded or removed if you need the space. The XL car has a cavernous 3,500 litres of space available if you pop all of the seats down.

How does the e-Berlingo drive? 

About as swiftly as it looks, but the Berlingo has traditionally been a glacial mover. Fans of previous cars will think they’ve upgraded to a supercar in comparison with some of the early diesels that were fitted here. There’s plenty of lean in corners, and the upright seating and sheer width of the car means you have a passing impression of where the front wheels actually sit. It’s a comfortable ride, though, and you’ll be driving to save range, not racing about.

Our choice from the range

Citroen

100kW Flair XTR M 50kWh 5dr Auto

Ј34,725

The Berlingo offers a lot of space and some neat ideas for families – the little fold-out tables behind the front seats are a nice touch, and the fancy roof storage is well worth speccing on the Flair XTR M model.

There are many different configurations possible inside, what with all the folding and sliding, and the boot is huge too. If the range isn’t too much of an issue – it’s very accessible as an entry into electric driving – then the Berlingo continues its reign as a no-nonsense bit of spacious family transport.

Driving

What is it like to drive?

The e-Berlingo doesn’t drive badly per se, it’s just not a car you’d ever really wish to drive too quickly. There’s certainly lean in corners, and the e-Berlingo’s van roots shine through, but at least with an electric powertrain there’s less of that roarsome engine noise invading the cabin.

Platform enthusiasts will delight in the knowledge that the Berlingo sits on the EMP2 base developed when Citroen was still part of PSA (it’s now of course part of the Stellantis extended universe). Turns out this platform has underpinned some really good cars including the good Peugeots and the C5 Aircross and X.

Is it comfortable then?

That’s more like the sort of question we should be asking of the e-Berlingo. Citroen has decided in recent years to focus more on comfort than trying to make its cars even vaguely sporty. It’s been much more successful at the former than the latter at any rate, and we applaud a carmaker that’s trying to do something a bit interesting and different.

The e-Berlingo rides very comfortably, smothering out all but the worst of the lumps and bumps we have to suffer in the UK. The ride and the electric motor all conspire to have you driving in a much more relaxed manner than you might otherwise consider.

Is it easy to drive? 

The Stellantis electric set-up has been applied across many of the cars in the capacious family stable, save perhaps some of the Vauxhalls that have got ideas about their station. If you’ve driven an electric Peugeot, for instance, you’ll recognise all of the controls in here. You get in, hold down a few buttons at various points and you’re ready to go.

To be honest, we’d like a bit more control over regen, but you can stick the Berlingo in B mode and it gives you a bit more charging power when you come off the accelerator. That works fine enough.

The other virtue of the Berlingo’s van provenance is that the upright rear end makes it easy to place when reversing, and there are huge mirrors to use. Still, we’d probably advise going for the Flair XTR-spec model that comes with front and rear parking sensors and a reversing camera, though the entry model does at least come with rear sensors as standard.

Interior

What is it like on the inside?

The interior of the e-Berlingo is as cavernous as you would expect. It’s the little things, like the fact that it’s so wide you can fit your backpack between the two front seats.

There’s acres of headroom for all shapes and sizes and those front two seats are wide and comfortable. It’s a fairly straightforward layout – a steering wheel right in front of you (handy), a pair of dials behind and an 8in touchscreen hoisted atop the centre part of the dash. The top spec Flair XTR model gets a 10in digital instrument panel that’s quite nifty, but it’s hardly a must-have accessory.

All the functionality – such as it is, this isn’t the most technology loaded car on the market – is adjusted via the central touchscreen, but there are a few buttons to adjust things like the air temperature and fan speed, sandwiched between the vents and the gear shift selector. The one irritation with the screen is the fact that the sole USB socket sits at the bottom of the screen, which means you have a wire trailing down to your phone in the small mobile-sized cubbie behind the gear selector.

Does it feel cheap inside?

It’s not an inspiring interior by any stretch, but – as Citroen has pointed out repeatedly – offers exactly the functionality you need. It’s a sea of plastic, but hard-wearing plastic that’ll survive most nuclear blasts and is thus adequately built for dealing with kids. Citroen has worked hard to disguise the cheapness of the plastics, with some interesting colours, shapes and textures about the place.

What about rear space? 

All the rear seats are individual ones, with a flat floor across the second row. It makes for a decent amount of space for rear passengers. Everyone should be fairly happy back here. If you’ve got the seven-seat XL version those two back seats are just about possible for adult-sized people, but they wouldn’t thank you for the opportunity to sit there for a lengthy roadtrip.

Bootspace with seats six and seven up stands at 209 litres in the XL car, but rises to a whopping 3,500 litres with everything folded down. The M offers an equally impressive 775 litres that expands to 3,000 with the seats down.

Buying

What should I be paying?

The e-Berlingo range is fairly compact – there are two trims, Feel and Flair XTR, and both are available in either the M or XL sizes. Feel M start at £31,495 and going for the larger option adds £1k. Another £1k on top of that takes you to £33,495 for the Flair XTR M, with the same again on top for the seven-seater. All very simple, no?

If you’re looking at monthly leasing then it’s a similarly compact spread. You can expect to pay around £650 a month for the Feel M, up to £675 a month for the Flair XTR XL.

What are the options like? 

The basic spec isn’t too bad – you get smartphone integration and DAB, rear sensors, electric front windows, aircon, tray tables and the useful little storage bin in the top of the dash as standard.

Anything but white paint is a £575 option on any car, you can pay £150 for a reversing camera on the Feel model, and keyless go is a £250 option on the Flair XTR, along with adaptive cruise at £200. Only the M model can be had with the panoramic roof and nifty storage (£750), as well as tow bar preparation (£250).

Any issues? 

The e-Berlingo isn’t available with heated seats, steering wheel or windscreen, which is something of an oversight for an electric car – using the aircon to heat the cabin in winter uses up a lot of electricity. At least the rear windscreen and mirrors warm up, at any rate. If you’ve got home charging then you can use the Citroen app to preheat the cabin remotely, which is a useful feature common to most EVs these days.

One particularly nice touch on the Flair XTR model is the opening rear windscreen, which comes with a beefy parcel shelf that can lowered down to halfway up the boot so you can pop things in via the back window. This is a useful feature because the rear boot hatch is so huge. If you’re limited on rear space where you park at home then this is definitely worth checking out before you commit to the Berlingo’s barn door of a boot.

What about rivals? 

The most obvious rivals to the e-Berlingo are all cousins from the Stellantis group – Peugeot’s version of the car is the e-Rifter, and Vauxhall does the Combo Life Electric. The Peugeot starts at £31,600 and the Vauxhall starts at £32,510, so it’s mostly a case of sifting through the equipment levels and deciding which one you think looks nicest. The Berlingo holds its own well, to our eyes.

There are of course electric seven-seaters available, but you’re looking at prices an order of magnitude higher when it comes to the likes of the Mercedes-Benx EQB or Tesla Model Y. Then again, perhaps you’d just be as well going for the nice Ford S-Max. It’s been around forever and does cost from £38k, but it’s probably still the best drive of this lot and comes with whatever powertrain you like as long as it’s a petrol hybrid set-up.

Keyword: Citroen e-Berlingo review