Factory announces battery upgrade to improve range, charging

AN update just announced in Europe for an electric Peugeot well-supported in New Zealand is likely a year away from release here.

Autodistributors NZ, which holds national distribution rights for Peugeot, says it has already had confirmation from France that the upgraded e-208 revealed by the factory just yesterday is going to come here.

However, we shouldn’t expect to see it until around mid-2023.

“We just are waiting for the details … we are hoping to get the upgraded e-208 in winter 2023,” said Arek Zywot, Autodistributors’ commercial manager.

In the meantime, the agency is very happy with how the current car is perfoming here.

“E-208 has been very good…. We are currently fulfilling customer orders only, every e-208 (apart from a few demos) that comes to NZ is customer sold.

“We secured a good volume in production and we will have a lot of them coming in the next few months.”

The updated car also has styling refinements, but the big news is that it achieves more range, through adopting a larger battery that is also shared with the next-size-up e-308, a car Autodistributors is also keen to bring in.

“It’s a great car and Peugeot NZ will do its best to bring it here, but no details yet.”

The new battery allows it to achieve a maximum 399 kilometres’ range, as gauged to the WLTP scale. The current model has a factory cited optimal usable range of 349 kilometres, though WLTP puts it at 340km.

The new battery is a 54kWh unit (51kWh usable) and with it comes a power boost from 101kW to 116kW. Torque remains the same at 260Nm.

Peugeot hasn’t said what performance figures we can expect but a slightly quicker 0-100kmh time than the outgoing model’s 8.1 seconds seems on the cards. Peugeot claims that recharging from 20 to 80 percent using a 100kW charging point will take less than 25 minutes.

The key to the improved range, says Peugeot, is the new chemical composition used in the battery. This is also combined with a heat pump, humidity sensor, a new ratio in the gearbox and lower friction tyres.