Citroen E-Berlingo Review (2022-present)

Quite simply, it’s a Berlingo van with windows and seats. Five or seven of them, to be precise, depending on whether you choose the standard M or long-wheelbase XL model.

Under the bonnet sits the same 134bhp electric motor and 50kWh battery as you’ll find in the Peugeot e-2008, the Vauxhall Corsa-E and the bigger Citroen Spacetourer people carrier, and that’s the only powertrain on offer. But you do get to choose between two equipment levels: Feel, which is a little basic, and Flair XTR, which has more equipment but is still no luxury car.

What you’re paying for with the e-Berlingo is space, and there’s a huge amount of it inside. You’ll never want for head-, elbow- or legroom in any of the front five seats, and there are neat little cubby holes and storage compartments galore, while the boot can take 775 litres in M form, or a whopping 1,050 litres with the rearmost seats folded down in the XL version.

It's a shame that the second row of seats isn’t a bit more flexible, though. These come as a 60/40 split bench on the Feel or as three individual seats on the Flair XTR. The seats fold down to leave a flat load area, but they don’t do any more clever tricks, such as sliding or tumbling, and you can’t remove them to create a van-like load bay.

Opt for the XL model, though, and the two extra seats you get in the third row are more flexible. They slide back and forth, fold down and can be removed entirely.

Take a look at the e-Berlingo, and you can probably imagine how it drives. This is clearly not a car built to provide a scintillating dynamic experience.

The steering is over-assisted and doesn’t have much feel, and the soft suspension means the e-Berlingo isn’t exactly the epitome of pinpoint accuracy. That said, it’s surprisingly capable of flowing down a back road with some verve; the suspension does a great job of keeping the body tight and controlled over mid-corner undulations, and there’s plenty of grip.

It rides pretty well, too. Sure, it can feel clumsy and lumpy over really churned-up bits of road, but the e-Berlingo smothers most larger bumps pretty well, and cruises comfortably. It’s also surprisingly free of wind- and road noise on the motorway, given its big, bluff shape.

The battery isn’t the biggest around, which explains the e-Berlingo’s slightly underwhelming range. By contrast, a Kia e-Niro can be had with a much bigger battery and nearly 300 miles of range for the same price.

On the plus side, the e-Berlingo comes with a 100kW on-board charger as standard, and recharging speeds are pretty reasonable right up to about 50 per cent full, at which point they start to tail off. In other words, like most electric vehicles, the e-Berlingo will charge faster the flatter the battery is.

Standard kit on the Feel includes cruise control, air-conditioning, rear parking sensors, Apple Carplay, Android Auto and remote central locking, but you only get analogue dials and you don’t get alloy wheels. Bump up to Flair XTR for those, as well as a digital driver display, sat-nav, head-up display and dual-zone climate control.

As electric cars go, the e-Berlingo is pretty efficient, achieving 3.9 miles per kWh on the official WLTP test’s combined cycle. In the real world, of course, that figure will vary considerably, because it will depend largely on ambient temperatures, how fast you’re driving, how much you’re braking, and how many hills you’re going up and down. You'll also need to select Eco from the three driving modes to get anywhere near this figure, and that'll mean reduced heating and air-conditioning, which can get tiresome pretty quickly.

On the whole, though, this is slightly better-than-average efficiency for an electric car of the e-Berlingo’s size, which is all the more impressive when you consider what a big, boxy thing it is.

As with most electric cars, servicing costs should be pretty affordable, as the e-Berlingo's drivetrain has far fewer moving parts than you'd find in a petrol or diesel equivalent. Citroen dealers offer a range of service plans to help keep the costs even more manageable, while older Citroens benefit from a range of fixed-price repairs, which should apply to the e-Berlingo once it hits three years old. Replacement tyres should also be fairly reasonable, because the e-Berlingo’s wheels are fairly small, especially if you choose the basic Feel model.

Predicting the e-Berlingo’s reliability isn’t easy, for several reasons: firstly, the Berlingo has historically sold in pretty small numbers, so we don’t have a huge sample of reliability study results to draw upon. Secondly, the e-Berlingo’s electric motor and battery pack are still fairly new and, even though they've been used in other cars, none of them have been around for long enough for us to be able to get any concrete idea about its dependability.

Citroen as a whole has been doing reasonably well in reliability surveys of late. It finished 11th out of the 30 manufacturers included in the latest What Car? Reliability Survey, for example: not a star showing by any stretch, but above average.

That suggests the e-Berlingo should be pretty reliable, and what’s more, if you order it online, you’ll get the benefit of a longer warranty of five years and up to 100,000 miles. Buy at a dealership, however, and that drops to three years and 60,000 miles, which is basically considered the industry minimum these days.