Peugeot Partner Electric Review

If you are after a small electric van then the options are few, with the Nissan eNV200 and Renault Kangoo Z.E. 33 the major rivals to the Partner Electric. 

Where the Partner Electric has a real advantage is price, with the basic model notably cheaper than the likes of the eNV200 and the even more expensive Kangoo Z.E. 33.

You don’t get much in the way of kit for your money, and the range isn’t as strong as the Renault and Nissan, but if you have a short and predictable daily routine with easy access to night-time charging then the Partner is a strong budget option.

Choosing a Partner Electric is fantastically simple – there is just the one trim, engine and gearbox available. It comes in SE trim only, which is relatively sparsely equipped. There are a few optional extras that could be added – Bluetooth, DAB and satellite navigation for example – but you can’t spec your own new Partner Electric so you are reliant on Peugeot or a previous owner having added those extras.

The only other thing you can pick between is the two lengths – L1 or L2. There is no difference between the two in terms of range etc, so that really comes down to personal preference.

The small electric van class is growing all the time, but the main contemporaries to the Partner Electric are the Renault Kangoo Z.E. 33 and the Nissan eNV200. They offer a better range and a better payload, although only by a small margin, but are more expensive with it.

The Citroen Berlingo Electric is fundamentally the exact same vehicle as the Partner Electric, just with a different badge. The new model of the Partner and Berlingo Electric will be joined by the battery-powered versions of the Vauxhall Combo and Toyota Proace City.

Attitudes towards the plushness of a van’s interior have moved on somewhat since the Partner was first launched in 2008, so the Electric’s cabin feels more than a little dated as a result.

The plastics on display are fairly uniform and there is little in the way of variety to break up the look and feel of the interior – certainly there are no touches of chrome or different coloured plastic as there might be on more modern rivals.

As there is just the one trim in the range there is no chance of adding a touch of premium by splashing out a bit more cash. The version you get is the only one on offer. Instead you get dull, hard and scratchy materials that don’t inspire much. Despite this old-fashioned look and feel, the Partner Electric’s cabin does feel like it is robust and suited to taking on a few bumps and dents. 

Infotainment doesn’t feature heavily in the Peugeot Partner Electric, with the basic stereo on offer not even coming with DAB digital radio, which is pretty much a given on all vehicles in the small van class. It doesn’t even have Bluetooth as standard, so streaming digital radio, or your own music etc, through the speakers isn’t possible either. Both of these could be added on as options, but you can no longer spec your own Partner Electric so there is no opportunity to add it in any more.

The radio and the LCD screen looks even more dated than it sounds, and it looks more suited to a car from the 1990s. Suffice to say that Apple Carplay, Android Auto and the like are not possible either so an aftermarket navigation unit is your best bet.

Passenger room in the Partner Electric is decent, with enough width to squeeze three across the front. The one in the middle will definitely have drawn the short straw as the seat is narrower than the other two, so it’s not a full-time option. The extra legroom created by the lack of gear lever is handy, but it still isn’t a seat you’d want to spend hours in.

The load space in the Partner Electric is the same as you get in the conventional models of its generation. It also comes in either L1 or L2 models, although the latter was only added towards the end of the Partner Electric’s life, joining the range in 2017.

The battery position is the reason for the loading space being unchanged as they sit underneath the load floor. This means that you get the same 1380mm overall width and 1230mm between the wheel arches.

The shorter of the two offers a load length of 1800mm while the longer stretches this out to 2050mm. This can be extended to a maximum of 3250mm if you get a model with the Multi Flex passenger seats. These fold forward and allow you to slot longer items into the front part of the cabin.

Because of the extra weight that batteries add, the payload of an electric van is often compromised versus a conventional model, and so it proves with the Partner Electric. The maximum carrying ability is reduced to 636kg in the L1 model and just 552kg in the L2, so those longer loads had better be light. The standard Partner of this generation was able to carry up to 860kg.

There is a slight difference to the doors on offer, with the L2 getting two side sliding doors while the L1 only gets one. Both get twin asymmetric rear doors that open out to 180 degrees. The ability to tow is another trick that the standard model has over the Electric – you can’t tow at all with the Electric model.

There is just the one battery version of the Partner Electric available, so it’s the 49kw (67PS) model or nothing. This does, however, make it slightly more powerful than the 60PS Renault Kangoo Z.E. 33.

As is the case with EVs, the motor gives an instant reaction when you put your foot on the accelerator, with the immediate torque making it pleasingly nippy away from a standstill. This doesn’t translate into a sustained level of acceleration, though, and the Partner Electric’s pace is somewhat more pedestrian when you are already moving at faster speeds. It’s not up to blasting past slow vehicles in rapid overtakes, and its forte is the first few metres of a journey.

The gearbox is incredibly simple. You turn a dial on the dash to select drive or reverse and that’s it – the Partner only has the one gear, so there is no mucking around with jerky changes or a clutch pedal.

The braking is the big thing that sets the Partner Electric apart, though. When you lift your foot off the accelerator, the Partner seeks to recover energy by engine braking. The process is quite aggressive, which can mean that there can be a bit of a jerk if you abruptly lift your foot after a burst of fast acceleration.

The process takes a little mastering, but it allows you to control the pace of the van without touching brake pedal as often. The engine braking won’t bring you to a total halt, but it will suffice for the majority of the time, meaning you should save on brake replacement costs, too.

Refinement is a real high point in the Partner Electric. There is no noise at all from the motor when you turn the van on and barely any when you set off either. There’s a mild hum at best, but you are hard pushed to hear that even when you get up to anything above crawling speeds.

As well as noise, diesel engines are also responsible for a large amount of the vibration that you get in a van, too. It follows, therefore, that the Partner Electric doesn’t suffer from anywhere near the same levels of shaking and vibration as the diesel either.

There’s no getting away from the laws of physics, though, and there is some wind and road noise on the rare occasion when you get up to higher speeds, although the standard full-height bulkhead helps keep booming noise from the loading bay to a minimum. 

Safety kit on the Partner Electric is pretty poor. Because of its age, there is nothing in the way of autonomous equipment is available. There’s no autonomous city braking, for example, and certainly no adaptive cruise control or lane keep assist. This looks worse when you consider the relatively high specification that comes on other electric vans.

Euro NCAP never crash tested the Partner in pure van form, but it did put the passenger version through in 2014, and even that only scored three stars. Inevitably it was marked down for its lack of safety assist systems, with only electronic stability control and a seatbelt reminder offered and a resultant score of 48% in that category. It didn’t fare wonderfully well in the adult protection section, either, with a score of 56%.

The hill assist function and the creep function of the automatic gearbox help keep the van safe on hill starts, though.

Because of when it was first sold, the Partner Electric’s range was first calculated on the older, less demanding NEDC test. Even on this it only claimed an official range of 106 miles, which even Peugeot admitted wasn’t a realistic aspiration.

Instead it suggested that up to 90 miles should be possible, although take a few more off this if you plan on using the van in winter or by loading the rear up. Something up to or around 80 miles is a more realistic maximum.

The Partner Electric sits in the highest insurance group for the model, but it isn’t a million miles off the rest of the range. It is in group 5E, where the rest of the range are in anything from 1E to 4E.

Being electric, the Partner Electric doesn’t qualify for any VED, so you are presented with a ‘bill’ for £0 each year. Benefit in Kind on vans is worked out on a flat rate fee, rather than being tied to CO2, and electric vans qualify for a discount on that already low rate, too – the figure for the calculation is 60% of the one for combustion engine vans.

There is just the one trim available, with very little in the way of added extras. If it is possible to get one that has had Bluetooth and DAB added then it will be a bonus, but there isn’t the option to build your own any more.

Of the two lengths, the L1 makes marginally more sense thanks to its slightly better payload, but there are no downsides to the L2 if you need the extra space instead.