Written by Ted Welford Updated: 27 April 2025

New Year – New Car. We’ll be looking to see what it’s like to live with the new 2024 Peugeot 3008 Mild Hybrid SUV. Follow our journey here as we experience six months of ownership through the Winter and Spring of 2025 and then into the early Summer.

Report by: Percy Lawman – Last Updated April 23rd 2025

Update 1: Welcome and introduction
Update 2: Equipment, options and specs
Update 3: Interior, boot and practicality
Update 4: Driving and safety

Update 1: Welcome and introduction

It’s always good to start off the New Year with some new metal. We’ve a new edition to the family in the guise of the Peugeot 3008 SUV Mild Hybrid. Our new partner is the 3008 1.2 Allure Hybrid 136hp e-DSC6, 6 Speed Automatic.

I’ll be honest; over the years of running various long termers, I seemed to have missed out on some of the French marques so I’m looking forward to getting to know KV24 ZXB just that little bit better.

Peugeot’s current 3008 is a brand-new model year from 2024 onwards and is the third generation replacing the previous 2016-2024 generation car. However, this is a very highly contested sector. There’s some heavy lifting opposition to contend with in the shape of Nissan’s Qashqai, the Kia Sportage, Skoda’s Karoq and the VW Tiguan eHybrid. As you can see, there’s some big headline names here. This won’t be a push over by any means, so the 3008 is probably going to have its work cut out to get noticed.

One thing worth a quick mention is that there’s currently the new e-3008 which is a fully electric version. If you’re curious to see how these two cars compare, then check out our separate e-3008 review here. 

The 3008 is available in two trim levels – ‘Allure’ and ‘GT’. Each one is available as a 1.2 litre 136hp Mild Hybrid or 1.6 litre 195hp Plug-in Hybrid. The 1.2 engine is available with a 6-speed Dual Shift Clutch [e-DSC6] and the 1.6 engine, a 7-speed DSC [e-DSC7].

At the heart of the mild hybrid is a 48v system. It has a 0.9kWh Lithium-Ion NMC battery located under the passenger’s front seat and the manufacturer claims that during a typical urban driving session, the vehicle will operate solely under electric battery power [100% zero emissions mode] at around 50% of the time. This in theory should reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by a reasonable amount. Official manufacturer figures for the 1.2 [136hp] engine show a combined total between 44.6 and 52.5 mpg. We’ll get an initial idea of how things are shaping up in the next few weeks, but we’ve also a plan to send our 3008 on an extended trip during the six months stay with us.

Being a mild hybrid means you don’t need to plug it in to charge the battery. The battery receives its charge by the regenerative charging [transferred kinetic energy] during engine braking. We’ll report back here during the coming months to see how this all pans out in real world driving scenarios.

Taking a brief look into the cabin reveals an environment where the manufacturer seems to have excelled. The mahoosive 21-inch panoramic curved screen is a real killer and the steering wheel is a modern departure to the more [rounded] affair of the past with flattened top and bottom sections.

On the exterior, we’ve a car that’s certainly very stylish. The previous 3008 went through some major design changes and this new generation expands on that further with a hefty makeover. The current car is sleek and modern with lots of angular surfaces. A dynamic front grille and plenty of sharp lines give the car a sporty and quite aggressive appearance. Does this say that our new SUV really means business? – read on in the coming weeks to find out more.

Update 2: Equipment, options and specs

Standard equipment on the 3008 is extremely generous and looking over the equipment list reveals a car which is teeming with plenty of modern tech.

Peugeot 3008 key equipment on all trim levels

Exterior:

• Alloy Wheels [19”] ‘BREDA/YARI ’ on Allure trims and ‘LULEA’ on GT trims
  [20” ‘SOFIA’ wheels are available on the e-3008]
• Metallic Paint
• Orbital Black Door Mirrors
• Body Coloured Grille and Exterior Door Handles

Interior:

• LED Front and Rear Roof Lighting
• LED Footwell and Boot Lighting
• 40/20/40 Folding Rear Seats
• Adjustable 2-position Boot Floor
• Driver Pedals with Aluminium Flash

Comfort and Convenience:

• Electronic Parking Brake
• Air Conditioning with 2-Zone Climate Control and ‘Clean Cabin’ Air Quality Management System
• Multifunction Trip Computer
• Acoustic Windscreen

Safety and Driver Assistance:

• Advanced Emergency Braking System with Radar [AEBS3] with Night Detection for Pedestrians
• Post Collision Safety Brake [PCSB]
• Airbags and Curtain Airbags all round
• Vehicle Alarm inc. Thatcham Cat 1 Electronic Code Immobiliser
• Locking Wheel Nuts
• Hill Start Assist
• ‘Isofix’ on the Two Outer Rear Seats
• Cruise Control and Lane Keeping Assist
• Tyre Inflation Monitoring

Radio/Multimedia and Navigation:

• 21-inch I-Cockpit HD Customisable Display
• Peugeot i-Connect Advanced with DAB/USB-C/Bluetooth/Apple Car Play & Android Auto
• Smartphone 15w Rapid Wireless Charging
• 6 Speakers [FOCAL Premium 690w 10-speaker upgrade available for GT trims]

What optional equipment is available for this car [Those in bold are fitted].

• Ingaro Blue Metallic Paint [also available in Cumulus Grey, Nera Black, Titane Grey or Okenite White] – £750
• Advanced Grip Control with 3 Driving Modes and Hill Descent Control – £300
• 360 Degrees Vision & Drive Assist Pack which includes Adaptive Cruise Control with ‘Stop/Go’, Long Range Blind Spot Monitoring, Rear Cross Traffic Alert [RCTA], Peugeot Smartbeam, High Beam Assist, 4 Exterior Cameras, Flank Guard Protection, Door Mirrors with Reverse Gear Indexing and a Heated Steering Wheel – £700
• Nappa ‘Mistral’ Black Perforated Full Grain Leather – £1000
• Panoramic Split Opening Spoiler Sunroof – £900
• Manually Retractable Tow Bar with TSM [Trailer Sway Mitigation], 13-pin harness and Upgraded Cooling System – £600

With extremely generous levels of kit, our Allure trim level car comes with cruise control, lane keeping assist, rear parking sensors, LED Headlights, 19-inch Diamond-cut ‘BREDA/YARI’ alloy wheels and dual-zone climate control to name but a small handful of the many desirable assets. Notch up to ‘GT’ spec and you can enjoy the additional benefits of front parking sensors, a multi-function steering wheel and higher spec LED headlights with adaptive high beam assist.

The standard 19-inch alloys are fitted with premium Michelin e.Primacy 225/55 R19 rubber all round. This is a summer road tyre chosen by manufacturers to equip mainly electric, hybrid or low fuel consumption vehicles.

Expanding on the exterior of the car, we can see where the new revised modern styling and looks of the new 3008 really hits home. The previous generation car was launched with a new and updated striking design and the new 2024 model just amplifies this further with plenty of funky styling tweaks scattered around.

Specifications:

Our car is the 1.2 [136hp] Allure, Mild Hybrid which is fitted with the e-DSC6, 6 speed automatic gearbox with front wheel drive. Finished in ‘Obsession Blue’ which is available as a standard factory fit option at no additional cost, is in our opinion, one of the best available colours and certainly stands out from the crowd. It’s probably our favourite.

Maximum power output is 136hp [100kw] @ 5000rpm from the 1199cc turbocharged 3 Cylinder petrol engine. Top speed is reported at 125mph and a 0-62mph of 10.2 seconds.

Fuel economy [WLTP figures] show a combined figure of between 44.6 and 52.5 mpg.

Annual VED for the vehicle comes in at £210 for the first year and then £180 per year thereafter. BIK rate banding is 29% and the insurance group 22E.

Other quick check top-level tech data:

• Fuel Tank Capacity: 55 Litres
• CO/2 Emissions: 124g/km
• Luggage Capacity [Seats Up]: 520 Litres
• Luggage Capacity [Seats Down]: 1480 Litres
• Gross Vehicle Weight [GVW]: 2080kg

Link to the full vehicle specifications on Parkers here

Update 3: Interior, boot and practicality

The interior of the 3008 is all about setting it apart from the crowd and it does a pretty good job in doing so. A peek into the cabin reveals an impressive environment. This is where the designers have taken everything to the next level and have certainly excelled.

Super comfortable front seats with oodles of leg room greet the driver and everything about it feels right. In the past, the driving position on some Peugeot models typically hasn’t suited taller drivers. This is because the flat-top of the small steering wheel can sometimes block the view of the digital instrument cluster. However, the new-look layout on the 3008 is a vast improvement with no reports of blocked or limited viewing so a great start to our own experience.

Inside, a single 21-inch curved widescreen display that splits into two sections brings infotainment and the dashboard together into one unit. The Peugeot Panoramic i-Cockpit is a frameless high-definition display, looks great and generally works well. The virtual ‘i-Toggles’ provides shortcuts to 10 functions of your choice and is fully configurable. You can input your favourite items to work as single selectable functions. For instance, it’s February here at the time of writing and in the middle of winter, so I’ve selected the heated steering wheel, heated front seats and climate control as single touch options.

The idea is great but we did however find that some functions weren’t particularly ‘snappy’ when selected and could be fiddly especially when trying to select whilst driving, sometimes needing another ‘touch’ to burst into life.

The majority of touch-screen displays in use today on devices such as car systems, smartphones, laptops etc use a ‘Capacitive Touch Screen’ and the 3008 is no exception.

Capacitive touch screens are coated with a material that can store an electrical charge and the change in capacitance happens when your finger touches the screen. However, the capacitance between your finger and screen can vary considerably depending whether your finger is wet, damp or dry. This is why we think there can be some operating anomalies with the screen and without being super technical here, I found the screen performed better when my finger was slightly damp rather than ‘bone’ dry. It’s just a theory – but our testing seemed to back up our own experiences.

OK – bums on seats! Our loan car is fitted with the Nappa ‘Mistral’ Black Perforated Full Grain Leather option [£1000] – but in our opinion, is well worth the additional outlay. The seats are extremely comfortable and we could tell quickly that this car is going to be good with little or no fatigue over extended distances.

The seats are heated and are fully controllable using three settings. On ‘max’, it feels like your rear end is on fire! The heated steering wheel takes very little time to come up to temperature and even in a cold winter car, was quite hot to touch only after a few minutes.

From the outside, our car looks pretty large, but inside it’s a bit like a ‘Reverse Tardis’ scenario. The front is super spacious, but the rear suffers somewhat. It’s [ok] as such and a 6-footer will fit in with a reasonable amount of leg room as long as the seat in front is not pushed fully rearwards. Kia’s Sportage as does the Hyundai Tucson for instance [which are both rivals] have larger areas in the rear.

One thing we frequently subject our long-term loans to is a trip to the local supermarket – just to get a feel of how much shopping they’ll hold. In our instance, we didn’t need so much at the time when doing the imagery so we’ve only half-filled the boot – but it does give you the idea. Six bags fit in easily and we recon you could probably fit in another seven for a full house.

With a 520-litre boot [seats up], the Peugeot 3008 should be spacious enough for most, but it offers less space than two of its main rivals. Kia’s Sportage comes in at 571 litres and the Hyundai Tucson at 577. Nissan’s family favourite the Qashqai, only manages 479 and a new 2024 eHybrid version of VW’s Tiguan can only manage 490 Litres.

As a practical offering, 4 adults can easily fit into the 3008 although space in the rear favours the vertically challenged. The front driver and passenger areas have more than enough room for anyone. You could also fit a child as the 5^th person in the rear but at this stage, the cabin becomes a rather crowded affair.

Update 4: Driving and safety

It’s a known fact that the fully electric E-3008 has a pretty firm and solid ride, so we’re happy to say that with less weight to carry around [about half a ton less] and smaller 19-inch wheels, the hybrid version does a much better all-round job.

Acceleration isn’t stellar with a 0-62mph of 10.2 seconds, but it does feel enough of a sprint to keep up with others on the road. The suspension is generally quite firm which actually helps keep body roll to a minimum. Out and about [and especially on faster ‘A’ roads], the 3008 was very composed and never hinted at getting out of shape.

Steering feedback to the driver is best described as a little on the ‘woolly’ side and it doesn’t feel like a car that wants to be pushed that hard. It’s best to avoid pot-holes as this can cause a big ‘thump’ and unsettle the ride somewhat. The car is certainly best when in its operating in its comfort zone.

Inside, road noise is kept to a minimum with a well-insulated interior although when accelerating hard, the petrol engine does feel a little on the harsh side but settles down well when you don’t ask too much of it.

Be aware of a small ‘lag’ when pushing hard from the ‘off’ and a standstill. It takes the 3008 about half a second to gather its thoughts and then to deliver the driver’s requirements.

I found the driving position very easy to get used to and on longer journeys the super comfortable front seats caused no hint of fatigue. During the winter and on cold mornings, the car began pumping warm air only after a minute or so following start-up. Couple in the heated steering wheel and electrically heated front seats, it gave the driver a great cosy feel in no time and all controls were easily accessible using the virtual ‘i-Toggles’ single touch options.

Around town the car feels easy to manage and although it’s quite a chunky affair, it doesn’t feel like a handful. You do have to be a good judge of the cars’ extremities though and be wary when parking although the on-board driving aids and a great hi-resolution 360-degree camera really help the driver avoid any unwanted accidents.

At lower speeds [about 20mph or under] the car will happily use 100% electric mode when the battery capacity allows, swapping to ICE when the speed increases or the throttle is depressed beyond about 25%. The transition between modes is generally seamless and very smooth.

In the cabin, the driver can select between three different driving modes. Eco, Normal and Sport. In our opinion, ‘Eco’ was really sloppy and the car felt like half the engine wasn’t working. The ‘Normal’ mode is certainly best for all round driving and the ‘Sport’ mode gave generally an improved response all round at the expense of some economy. The 3008 hybrid has quite a strong regenerative braking system so when taking your foot off the throttle, you feel the car slow very quickly. Initially, this takes a little time to get used to but the system is effective and quickly charges up the small onboard hybrid battery.

Official figures show the car would average between 44.6 and 52.5mpg depending on driving conditions. In the real world I found this to be reasonably accurate. Economy did suffer when you made the car work harder and, on some occasions, actually dipped below 40 especially when ‘Sport’ mode was engaged. On the other hand, when being light-footed and keeping your speed to around 50-55mph, the car showed that it can achieve upwards nearing 60mpg which we felt was pretty good, given how much metal the engine is lugging around.

Rear Wiper Woes:
I mentioned that we’ve driven the car a lot during the winter period. So, I was surprised when I noticed the absence of a rear windscreen wiper. This new design feature is supposed to aid aerodynamics, with the theory that the airflow naturally pushes water away from the windscreen. That maybe the case, but clearing water is very different than having a clean windscreen that you can actually see out of.

In our opinion, this is a big failure. The rear windscreen frequently got into such a state and so grubby, that it required manual intervention in order to clean it. S’il voux plait Monsieur Peugeot, bring back the rear wiper 🙂

Software Folies:
Soon after we took delivery of the car, the software decided it wanted to do an update. This duly failed and system went through the install process again [and again, and again]. Yes, you get the picture, it failed indefinitely, going through the same installation routine loop and always failing – advising us to contact customer services.

To our knowledge, there was nothing preventing an install. We were in locations which gave good connectivity and the options to allow a download [from the user manual] enabled.

Safety – EURO NCap:
Unfortunately at the time of writing [April 2025], the new 3008 has yet to be tested and evaluated by EU safety aficionado’s Euro NCAP.

Check back with us in May for further updates.

Report by: Percy Lawman – Last Updated April 23rd 2025