Citroën ë-C3 test drive | The Car Expert

Make and model: Citroën ë-C3
Description: Small electric hatchback
Price range: from £22,095

Citroën says: “New ë-C3 revolutionises mobility: compact and affordable, without any compromise on design, comfort or technology.”

We say: The Citroën ë-C3 is a great value small electric car, offering impressive comfort and practicality for urban driving at an affordable price.

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Introduction

The growth in small electric cars is accelerating, which is good news for consumers as they are the new car market’s most affordable vehicles. If you haven’t bought a new car for a few years, we completely understand if you struggle to get your head around a £22K supermini being ‘affordable’, even if it is electric, but that’s where we are today.

The Citroën C3 is the latest model to get an all-electric version, which is called the Citroën ë-C3. In fact, it’s being promoted as the headline model in the new C3 family. A petrol version is arriving shortly as well, but the electric model is the one taking all the attention at the moment. It was launched last summer, but a few delays have meant that it has only reached UK showrooms in early 2025.

What is it?

The C3 has long been Citroën’s best-selling model, making up about 30% of all its sales, and so the all-new fourth-generation model is an important event for the company. Incidentally, the previous model will continue on sale for the time being, now called the ‘C3 Origin‘ and offered at a lower price with a more limited specification.

The new Citroën C3 family gains more of a baby-SUV style, which is reminiscent of the previous Citroën C3 Aircross. This, in turn, will push the new C3 Aircross into slightly larger and chunkier territory when it arrives shortly.

This particular car is the Citroën ë-C3, which as you’ve probably already spotted, is the electric version. With pretty much all its new models, Citroën is designing its cars to allow either fossil fuel or electric power, rather than designing separate petrol and electric models (like, for example, Volkswagen).

What do you get for your money?

Pleasingly, Citroën has kept things pretty simple with the ë-C3 range by offering just two trim levels and one motor/battery combination. If only all manufacturers did this…

The two trim levels are Plus and Max. Both are powered by an 83kW (113hp) motor powered by a 44kWh battery. The Plus has a starting price of £22.1K while the Max starts at £23.8K. The only options are premium paint, a puncture repair kit (a £20 option that should just be standard) and a charging upgrade which is handy if you have access to 22kW power at home. Most homes can only supply 7kW, so you don’t need to worry about it.

Citroën is very much emphasising value for money on the new C3 family. The lower-level ‘Plus’ specification is pretty well appointed, while ‘Max’ adds a number of premium extras like heated front seats and steering wheel, wireless phone charging, automatic climate control air-conditioning, satnav (if, for some reason, you don’t want to use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto), reversing camera, privacy glass, heated windscreen, and more. Have a read through the brochure before making a decision, but the higher-spec Max certainly seems to be worth the extra money.

In terms of warranty, Citroën falls well short of the best brands in the market. You get a standard three-year/60,000-mile new car warranty, which is well and truly eclipsed by the likes of Kia, MG and Omoda, who all offer seven years on their new cars. Hyundai offers five years with unlimited miles, which is handy if you want to go a long way between now and 2030.

As with most electric cars, the battery is additionally covered by an eight-year/100,000-mile warranty from new.

Expert tips

• Only two trim levels, one motor and one battery size, which makes choosing a model simple
• Higher-spec ‘Max’ looks good value at an extra £1,300 over ‘Plus’

What’s the Citroën ë-C3 like inside?

The ë-C3 does a fantastic job of disguising its budget origins. Rather than a wall of shiny black plastic, the dashboard is divided up into multiple sections, with fabric and various different materials. It works both visually and practically, although the finish still favours hard-wearing durability over premium-feel softness.

Citroën has nicked the steering wheel and speedometer layout from sister brand, Peugeot. There’s a digital display that sits high on the dashboard, with a small steering wheel that sits underneath it. It means that you’re looking over the wheel to see your speed, rather than looking through the wheel. Within a couple of minutes, it all makes complete sense and feels perfectly natural (and better than Peugeot’s attempts, which must go down well in Paris…).

The seats are quite flat but very comfortable. Citroën has made much of its focus on comfort, and the seats certainly live up to this. They’re topped with a layer of memory foam, while the fabric upholstery feels soft yet durable. There’s not much in the way of side bolstering to hold you in place during corning at higher speeds, but that’s absolutely fine for a car like this. After about an hour and a half of driving, we still felt fresh as a daisy.

Cabin space is reasonable for this class of car, as is the 310-litre boot. Two adults in the back seats won’t enjoy it a whole lot, although the squared-off shape of the C3 means decent rear headroom, but for occasional adult use and for kids, it’s fine.

The standard ten-inch touchscreen works well – Citroën has improved in this area compared to some of its other models. The higher-spec Max model has in-built satnav while the lower-spec Plus requires you to use your own Google Maps/Apple Maps/Waze/other mapping from your phone. In practice, most people tend to use phone-based nav these days so it’s not really a big issue. Good news is that you get a proper row of physical controls to adjust the air conditioning, rather than having to go via menus on the touchscreen.

Expert tips

• Take a test drive to make sure you’re comfortable with the small steering wheel and high-mounted speedo
• Cab in space is decent without being class-leading in any way
• Interior ambience is better than most small cars

What’s the Citroën ë-C3 like to drive?

In a word, smooth. Citroën’s self-declared goal was to bring ‘big car’ comfort to the small car segment, and it has absolutely delivered with the ë-C3.

Rather than tuning the C3 models for sharp handling (like the now-departed Ford Fiesta), Citroën has prioritised a comfortable ride that soaks up the UK’s many potholes and bumps admirably. Combined with light steering, this is a very good urban car. Hopefully, the petrol model will prove to be equally cossetting, and there’s no reason to think it won’t.

There is, however, a trade-off in handling. On a windy road, you do feel the ë-C3 leaning over more than some other small cars through corners. Combined with the usual lifeless electric power steering found in most new cars, and this is not a car for hurrying along in. But given that 99% of your driving is almost certainly not going to be flinging your car through winding B-roads at speed, Citroën’s choice to prioritise comfort is entirely correct.

The Citroën ë-C3 is also at perfectly home sitting on a motorway at 70mph, but that is going to affect your battery range. Unlike conventional petrol or diesel cars, electric cars are more efficient in stop-start urban driving and that’s where you’ll get the best range out of the battery. For occasional motorway driving, it’s nothing to really bother about. But if your usual commute involves long stretches at the national speed limit, this is probably not the best choice of vehicle.

Expert tips

• Effortlessly comfortable compared to most other small cars
• Acceleration is more ‘adequate’ than ‘amazing’, but well-suited to this sort of vehicle
• Longer stretches at national speed limit will reduce battery range

How safe is the Citroën ë-C3?

As of March 2025, the Citroën ë-C3 has not been assessed by Euro NCAP so we can’t give you a definitive answer of how safe it is (Euro NCAP testing assesses new cars over and above minimum legal safety requirements). If and when this testing takes place, we’ll update the information and safety score here.

The ë-C3 is kitted out with plenty of latest-generation ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) kit, and they all work well enough – although we thankfully didn’t need to test them in genuine emergency conditions. This is certainly not the case in all small cars, so Citroën deserves praise for making the systems as unobtrusive as possible.

As with all new cars, you still need to deactivate certain systems – speed limit warnings and so on – every time you start the car if you don’t want to be beeped and bonged at for your entire journey, but it’s at least simpler to do than in many other vehicles.

Expert tips

• The Citroën ë-C3 has not yet been rated by Euro NCAP (as of April 2025)
• Driver assistance systems are less annoying than in many other new models

Citroën ë-C3 economy, battery range and charging

The Citroën ë-C3 has a 44kWh battery, which works out to a battery range of about 200 miles, according to the official UK/EU lab test programme. That’s more than enough for most urban driving situations, especially since the average household does about 120 miles/week and urban-use cars tend to be lower than that. If you’re frequently travelling longer distances, this is probably not the car for you anyway.

In the real world, your results will inevitably vary. Most ë-C3 drivers are going to be using their cars in urban environments, which is good for EVs as you push a little bit of charge back into the battery every time you lift off the accelerator or hit the brakes. So in urban driving, you may be able to exceed the 200-mile figure. In open road driving with less braking, especially on motorways at higher speeds, your mileage will reduce significantly. Our launch drive was quite short, so we didn’t get anywhere near testing the range of a full battery.

Electrical efficiency (the EV equivalent of fuel economy in a petrol or diesel car) is very good, rating an A-grade according to our unique Expert Rating Index, which certainly helps to get a decent range out of a relatively small battery. However there’s no heat pump included or available, which means range may suffer in very cold conditions. While we wouldn’t expect a heat pump to be included as standard, it’s a shame that you can’t pay extra for one.

At public chargers, the ë-C3 can accept a maximum charging speed of 100kW, which is pretty good compared to many other small cars. Assuming you are plugged into a 100kW charger, that means that you can get a charge from 20% to 80% (the industry standard measurement for fast charging) in less than half an hour. If you’re charging at home with a 7kW wallbox, a full charge from 0-100% will take about six hours.

The charging port is in the left-rear corner of the car, so you’ll want to reverse into charging bays rather than driving in forwards. If you’re charging at home, the ë-C3 is short enough that your cable will probably reach the charging plug regardless of which way round you park.

Expert tips

• Official battery range of 199 miles. Around town, this is probably achievable but motorway driving will reduce this significantly.
• Battery is unsurprisingly small since this is a small car, but driving range should be plenty for its intended customer base.
• The charging port is in the left-rear of the car, which means reverse parking in most charging bays will be better.
• Comes standard with the usual Type-2-to-Type-2 charging cable for plugging into a dedicated charging unit, but not a Type-2-to-Type-3 cable for plugging into a standard three-point electricity plug.

Verdict

If you’re looking for a small car, the Citroën ë-C3 is likely to tick a lot of boxes: It’s very comfortable, with seats that don’t make you ache after half an hour and suspension that seems tailor-made for broken British roads; it has a decent amount of space for this class of car, both for passengers and luggage, and; the performance from the electric motor is more than adequate for urban driving, which is also where it offers plenty of driving range. Longer trips on motorways will drain the battery more quickly, however, so keep that in mind.

We haven’t yet got safety data, but most other Stellantis models (Peugeot, Vauxhall, Jeep, etc.) have tended to score four-star ratings from Euro NCAP. We hope that the ë-C3 might go one better for a top five-star score, which other manufacturers have certainly achieved, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Overall, the Citroën ë-C3 is a great value small electric car, offering impressive comfort and practicality for urban driving at an affordable price.

Expert recommendations

• Battery range is more than suitable for intended market
• Can’t confirm safety performance until Euro NCAP conducts its tests
• One of the most comfortable small cars at any price

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