Citroen e-C4 X Review (2023-present)

In some ways, the ë-C4 X is a car that breaks entirely new ground for Citroën, and in others is an example of Citroën doing what Citroën has done countless times before. On the former point, it breaks new ground because it’s the first model that the brand has released that will only be offered – in the UK at least – as a purely electric vehicle. So, none of those antiquated old internal combustion engines where this car is concerned.

On the latter point, the car is same-old-Citroën in terms of its design. It’s unconventional, for one thing, which has been a Citroën tradition since way back when, and it also uses a design technique where it smashes together several different genres of car to come up with something rather unique, a technique that Citroën has plenty of form with. The Citroën C5 X is the most recent example, using the same greatest-hits deign technique to make it look much more dramatic than the C5 Aircross SUV with which it shares its underpinnings.

Look at the e-C4 X from the front, and you’ll see the raised ride height and visual chunkiness of an SUV, traits it shares with the regular C4 SUV with which it shares its CMP platform and much of its componentry. Look at it from the side and rear, though, and you’ll notice a shape that also brings in the swoopy roofline of a coupe, and there’s also a bit of four-door saloon car in there.

In terms of rivals, the Citroen goes up against anything and everything that gets anywhere close to being a zero-emission electric SUV or family hatchback. At the smaller end of the scale, you’ve got funky contenders such as the Mazda MX-30 or Honda E, but more comparable are cars such as the Renault Megane E-Tech, Volkswagen ID. 4, Nissan Ariya and Hyundai Ioniq 5, while other cars such as the Toyota BZ4X and Skoda Enyaq feel like a step up in size.

Part of the reason for messing with the body shape was to improve practicality, and we’d say that’s been a partial success. Things looks good on paper, with a generous 510-litre boot provided, which is a very useful improvement of the 380-litre boot you get in the regular C4 SUV.

That’s not the full story, though, because the access you get to the space isn’t as good due to the X switching to a saloon-style bootlid, rather that the regular C4’s SUV-style hatchback, where the rear window lifts with the tailgate. As a result, the opening is rather narrow, and -because the rear window is fixed – also rather shallow compared with that of the C4 hatchback.

There’s more. In the regular C4, you get 60/40 split-folding rear seats that drop to extend your cargo-carrying capacity, plus a movable boot floor to level out both the resulting step in the load area and the substantial lip on the boot opening. In the X, you get the same split-folders, but for some reason, not the movable boot floor, so there’s a significant step down from the boot lip to the load floor, and then a significant step up to the seatbacks of the folded rear seats. That can be a pain when loading heavy items.

Rear-seat accommodation is similarly hit-and-miss. On the plus side, rear kneeroom is generous enough for even tall passengers to stretch out comfortably. Less positively, however, the changes to the C4 X’s roofline haven’t done rear headroom many favours, and passengers of a six-foot-stature will find their hairdos rubbing on the ceiling, while anyone much taller than that will be even less comfortable. Things are even worse if you’re consigned to the central seat, because there’s a plastic lighting unit on the ceiling above it, which eats into your headroom even further, and rather than have your scalp nestling against the fabric headlining, it’ll be rubbing against hard, sharp-edged plastic. You’ll also have to sit with your feel splayed either side of a hump in the floor.

It’ll come as no surprise that the drivetrain in this car is exactly the same one found in pretty much every other battery-electric vehicle made by parent company Stellantis, so the Peugeot e-208 and e-2008, the Vauxhall Corsa-e and Mokka-e, the DS3 e-tense, etc etc. And the application of it here is as familiar as you’d expect, which is to say that it is entirely pleasant.

The electric motor has 134bhp, which isn’t a huge amount by electric car standards, and it doesn’t deliver that blistering, all-at-once, off-the-mark performance that some electric cars do, instead preferring to unfurl its acceleration in a more steady and gradual manner. That said, it’s still punchy and responsive in pretty much every situation, so you always feel like you’ll have enough get-up-and-go when you need it. You’ll also enjoy the pleasantly unbroken nature of the power delivery. It just keeps on pulling without any pesky gearchanges to get in the way. And because it’s electric, your progress is also nice and quiet, although the lack of engine noise means you can occasionally hear the suspension clonking underneath you as you deal with bumps.

And talking of suspension, that’s another thing that Citroën takes great pride in. The brand has been famed in the past for producing cars with a pillowy soft ride, and in the modern era, the firm has tried to recapture those days with something called the Citroën Advanced Comfort Suspension, which comes fitted to all ë-C4 Xs as standard. It uses conventional springs and dampers like most other cars, but teams them with hydraulic bump stops to further isolate you from the effects of ripples and ruts in the road. And combined with the soft suspension setup, it’s really effective, because the car rides beautifully especially at low speed, where bumps are dealt with almost imperceptibly. And combined with the effortless performance and whisper-quiet characteristics of the all-electric drivetrain, it all works together really nicely.

There is a payoff for that soft suspension, though, and that is lots of body movement. You can feel the nose of the car rising and falling as you operate the accelerator and brakes, respectively, which can sometimes make you feel like you’re on a fishing boat in choppy waters. Some people will be fine with it, but others will be sensitive to it and feel it in their gut, so more than ever, we’d recommend a test drive before you buy to figure out which camp you fall into.

And that’s when you’re going in a straight line. Arrive at a bend, and you’ll also experience lots of body roll. This isn’t necessarily a problem in terms of handling precision, because the ë-C4 X really isn’t that kind of car anyway. It’s more that such pronounced lurches of movement as you change direction might have the kids feeling queasy, especially if you accidentally enter a bend quicker than you meant to.

And it would be by accident, because this isn’t a car that encourages you to press on: like we said, it’s just not that kind of car. There’s decent grip, but the steering has zero feel, it’s extremely light – probably too light for some tastes – and it’s also pretty slow to respond. So you’re much better off just taking a relaxed approach to your driving and enjoy the car’s laid-back, wafty nature.

Up front, you’ll recognise plenty in common with the regular C4, because it’s all pretty much identical. There’s a digital instrument screen set deep into the dashboard in front of you, and a central touchscreen that has all the functionality you’d expect in this day and age, and it’s reasonably easy to find your way around. You have physical controls for the air-con, but only for temperature and fan speed, so if you want to do anything else, such as change the direction of the airflow, you have to delve into the touchscreen menus, which is fiddly and distracting Quality-wise, it’s pretty much identical to the regular C4, which is to say that while there are some interesting flourishes, the majority of the materials just a little bit drab and unpolished, so it’s not the classiest-feeling car of its type. You certainly won’t be fooled into thinking that you’ve mistakenly wandered into an Audi or BMW.

The ë-C4 X has a line-up three trim levels. Entry-level Sense models come with alloy wheels, Keyless Entry and Start, and a 10-inch touchscreen equipped with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity. Shine is the next trim up, and these models gain a head-up display, a reversing camera, Automatic Intelligent Beam Headlights and a heated steering wheel, as well as My Citroen Drive Plus, which is a higher-spec infotainment system with navigation and integrated natural voice commands. Range-topping Shine Plus models add Alcantara seats that are heated for the driver and front passenger.

The numbers are important with any electric car, so let’s whizz through those now. The car has a 50kWh battery pack, of which 45 is usable capacity, and it has an official WLTP range of 222 miles, slightly more that the e-C4 SUV, probably due to its more aerodynamic shape, and improved drag coefficient. That’s a laboratory figure, remember, so expect more like 190 miles in favourable conditions, and that’ll drop to more like 140 miles when undertaking long motorway drives in cold temperatures.

In terms of real-world efficiency, our drive took place in chilly temperatures, and was made up of a mixture of A-roads and motorway, so not exactly optimum conditions. Nevertheless, we saw a figure of 3.7 miles per kWh, which isn’t at all bad in the scheme of things.

A full charge from a 7kW home wallbox charger will take around seven and a half hours, and the Citroën can rapid charge at up to 100kW via its now-European-standard CCS port, earning you a 0-80% charge in just 30 minutes. Home-charging will cost you significantly less that it’ll cost you to fill up a regular petrol or diesel car, especially if you utilise off-peak energy tariffs by charging overnight when electricity is cheaper. However, do bear in mind that public rapid charging is much, much more expensive, so if you regularly have to rely on the public charging network, you costs could spiral.

In terms of purchase prices, the ë-C4 X costs a wee bit more than the regular e-C4 SUV, but it’s still very competitive when compared with mainstream EVs of a similar size.

It’s always difficult to make any, erm, reliable predictions about a car’s reliability when it’s still so new, because there’s very little data to go on. We can take an educated guess by looking at the performance of the Citroën brand as a whole in this area, and the news on that score is reasonable, with the company finishing a creditable 11th out of the 32 carmakers included in the 2022 What Car? Reliability Survey.

You can also find peace-of-mind in the new ë-C4 X’s electric-only status, as electric motors have only a handful of moving parts, while combustion engines have thousands, so there’s much less potential for something to go wrong with an electric car, and they’re a lot easier to fix when they do.

Citroën’s warranty programme has no mileage limit for the first two years, but third-year cover is limited to 60,000 miles. That’s about the bare minimum you can expect these days.