Citroen e-Berlingo Review 2025: Price, specs & boot space

Make a list of the qualities your next electric car needs to have. If practicality is at the top, then the Citroen e-Berlingo needs to be on your shortlist, because not much gets close when it comes to usable space. The flexibility of being able to sit up to seven is a key attraction, too.

If, however, you’re looking for something fun to drive, and luxurious or you need to cover long distances between charges, then this might not be the car for you.

There’s just one motor and battery combination available in the Citroen e-Berlingo, which is a 136PS motor with a 52kWh battery. The choices you’ll need to make are with trim level and body style. If you need seven seats then the XL model is the obvious choice – otherwise, stick to the M model. As far as trim goes, the top-spec Flair XTR (later Max) model costs around £2,000 over than the entry-level Feel (later Plus) trim, so we’d go for that one to enjoy all the features that come with it.

Although the death of the MPV has been (incorrectly) trumpeted for many years, there are actually quite a few electric MPVs that you might consider alongside a Citroen e-Berlingo. Two – the Peugeot e-Rifter and the Vauxhall Combo Life Electric – are essentially the same car underneath, as they all share the same van-based mechanical underpinnings. Arguably, they’re not as stylish, however.

You could also look at the Ford E-Tourneo Custom and Toyota Proace Verso Electric, which are also based on vans, or at more premium options like the Mercedes-Benz EQV and Volkswagen ID.Buzz.

The e-Berlingo’s van origins are reflected in the quality of its interior materials, which feel robust and durable but not of the highest quality. Compared to something like a Volkswagen they feel decidedly scratchy and plasticky, and don’t even think about comparing them to something from premium brands like Mercedes. They’re workmanlike and solid enough, though, and the design touches escalate the interior considerably.

There are a few areas that raise eyebrows, however. Some elements don’t feel as solid as you’d hope for in a £30k-plus car, such as the slightly tinny thunk when you shut the door. Others seem badly thought out – the swooping side-window corner details look great from the outside, but from the inside, you see the underside of the plastic cladding, which soon gets dirt and grime stuck between it and the window.

In early versions of the e-Berlingo, you got an 8.0-inch touchscreen in the Feel trim, which was upgraded to a larger 10.0-inch unit in the Flair XTR model. Later on, after the 2024 facelift, the larger screen was made standard across the range. It’s still on the small side by the latest standards, but it does the job, albeit without much flair (no pun intended).

The system can be a bit fiddly and slow to use, but Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are included on all versions, so you can basically bypass the built-in system and rely on your phone’s music and navigation apps instead.

Space is the e-Berlingo’s party piece. In short, there’s lots of it. We’ll start with the boot, which in the M model is very big at 775 litres, outclassing even the biggest estate cars and SUVs. For comparison, the Skoda Superb Estate can boast 690 litres and that's considered very big. Keep in mind, too, that the capacity is measured only to the window line, and the e-Berlingo’s height means that you can pile tall stuff up towards the ceiling.

Pop down the rear seats (which fold individually) and that space opens up to a whopping 3,500 litres. The Berlingo looks like a van, and it’s got the space of a van, too. In the seven-seater XL model, boot space increases even further to 1050 litres, or 4000 litres with the seats down. You have to carry your charging cables around in the boot (inside a handy case), but with so much room, it seems churlish to criticise the lack of a dedicated cable storage area.

Speaking of storage, Citroen claims that there are 26 different compartments for storage inside the e-Berlingo, giving an extra 167 litres of storage space. We haven’t measured them, but there are lots – trays in the roof above the dashboard, cubbyholes all over the dash, a big glovebox, large door bins, an area behind the infotainment screen… the list goes on and on. Weirdly, though, there’s no big storage area between the front seats, which seems a strange omission.

One of the test cars we drove was fitted with the optional Holiday Pack, which gives you extra storage across the car’s ceiling in a lit, translucent, tray that runs for the full length of the car. It also comes with a storage space in the top of the boot that drops down like a glove box from the ceiling and can also be accessed from inside the car. It's ideal for long holiday road trips.

Passenger space is extremely generous. Even tall adults will have no problems fitting in the back row of the M model, with loads of legroom and headroom. A flat floor and a proper seat means the middle-seat passenger will be as comfortable as those on either side of them. We’ve yet to try the XL model, but it looks impressively spacious, even for adults. You can take the third-row seats out entirely for extra luggage capacity.

From a wider practicality point of view, the sliding side doors are fantastic, especially if you’ve got small children who are prone to bashing conventional doors on walls, other cars or just about anything. The huge tailgate, while giving you an enormous aperture in which to load stuff into, does mean you’ll need a big area behind the car to be able to open it, which is worth keeping in mind if you’re backing into parking spaces. That said, on some versions, you can open just the glass to pop stuff in without needing to move the car forward.

When it was first released, the e-Berlingo came with a 52kWh battery attached to a 136PS electric motor with 260Nm of torque, and it had an official range of up to 177 miles, depending on the model. The facelifted model, introduced in 2024, increased that slightly, with a figure up to 212 miles. That’s still not loads by modern standards, but it could be enough for drivers who aren’t doing mammoth motorway slogs every day.

In terms of power, the precise amount you get varies according to which of the three driving modes you select. To get the full 136PS, you'll need Power mode, but even then, the car certainly isn’t quick. The  0-62mph dash takes 11.7 seconds according to official figures, but in terms of sensation, the pickup feels brisk off the line, and the acceleration is then unfurled fairly gently from then on.

Sitting at the other end of the spectrum is Eco mode. This preserves your range slightly better by limiting your power output to just 82PS, and it also reduces the functionality of your air-con and heating for the same reason. Unsurprisingly, your progress becomes much less urgent, although you still have just about enough oomph to keep pace with traffic at low-to-middling speeds without feeling like you’re getting in anyone’s way.



As the name suggests, Normal mode is the one that the car defaults to when you switch it on, and this provides a middle ground between the two extremes, with 109PS on tap. However, performance levels feel closer to Power mode than they do to Eco, so this mode will be enough for pretty much any driving situation you face.

The acceleration you get is delivered in one constant unbroken stream, regardless of which of the modes you choose. That’s because, like in most EVs, the e-Berlingo doesn’t have a gearbox - it doesn’t need one because a single fixed-ratio gear will do - so there are no gearchanges to get in the way of your progress.

You hear a faint whirr from the e-Berlingo's electric motor when pulling away, and occasionally when picking up speed, but this noise is obviously a lot quieter than a combustion engine would be. Road and wind noise can be moderately intrusive at higher speeds, the wind buffeting off the big side mirrors and echoing around the vast interior space. You soon get used to it, however. Overall, this is a very easy and comfortable car to cruise in.

Safety organisation Euro NCAP decided that the four-out-of-five-star rating for the Peugeot Rifter applied to the mechanically identical Citroen Berlingo and e-Berlingo, too, following its test in 2018.

The missing star is down to the fact that the automatic emergency braking system isn’t particularly sophisticated, but the Berlingo is nevertheless packed with safety kit as standard. Lane-keep assist and traffic sign recognition are also included, as is a driver-attention alert system in case you get sleepy while on the road.

The Citroen Berlingo range – including the non-electric models – scored well in the HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index with an average rating of 8.78 out of 10 for reliability. That said, Citroen as a brand came a rather poor 26th out of 30 manufacturers. 

Citroen's standard warranty is three years long with unlimited mileage for the first two years and a cap of 60,000 miles for the third year. There's a separate warranty for the battery that kicks in if the capacity drops below 70% during the first eight years or 100,000 miles of driving.

Depending on the model you go for, the Citroen e-Berlingo sits in insurance groups 18 to 20 (of 50), or if you go for a car from after the 2024 facelift, between groups 20 and 21. That’s higher than the standard non-electric Berlingo, which sits in groups 8 to 14 (post-facelift, 12 to 15), but comparable to other electric MPVs like the Peugeot Rifter and the Vauxhall Combo Life Electric.

Right now, you won’t pay any Vehicle Excise Duty on the all-electric Citroen e-Berlingo, but that will change later this year. From April 2025, electric cars will likely attract the same flat rate of car tax as combustion-engined vehicles, which is currently £190 a year.

The original Citroen e-Berlingo, introduced in 2021, came in a choice of two trims – Feel, which was available in both M and XL versions, and Flair XTR, which was only available on the M model.

As standard, the Feel model comes with two sliding doors and 'Airbump' styling that helps protect the bodywork against car park dings. It features the 8.0-inch infotainment screen with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay as well as rear parking sensors.

Flair XTR adds 17-inch alloy wheels, black roof bars and door mirrors and orange exterior elements, while inside, there's a 10-inch digital instrument display and a head-up display, too, as well as sat nav.

Several features were options so look out for used examples with them fitted. These include a reversing camera on the Feel model, keyless go and adaptive cruise control. The panoramic roof and ceiling storage was optional, too, and only on the M model.

The refreshed e-Berlingo, sold from 2024, has different trim levels: Plus and Max. Plus features rear parking sensors, a reversing camera, the digital instrument display and adaptive cruise control. The Max trim adds more comfortable (and brightly coloured) front seats, independent sliding and folding rear seats and gloss black roof bars.