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The Citroën ë-C4 X is basically a Citroën ë-C4 with a boot rather than a hatchback; a comfortable driving experience is one of the car’s main highlights.
Citroën became part of Stellantis in 2021 and since then there has been an increasing amount of sharing of vehicle platforms and electric powertrain technology. So it’s no surprise that the new Citroën ë-C4 X shares the same platform with the Citroën ë-C4 (and other models), the main difference being that the ë-C4 X has a boot rather than the hatchback of the ë-C4 – so should you consider the booted ë-C4 X over the ë-C4?
Stellantis is upgrading the battery size of many of its models from 50kWh to 54kWh, however our Citroën ë-C4 X test car still had a 50kWh battery, which provides energy to a 100kW (136hp) motor driving the front wheels.
The key difference between the ë-C4 X and the ë-C4 is not that the X denotes all-wheel drive or more of a crossover body style, as you might expect, but that the ë-C4 X has a boot (510 litres with the rear seats up, or you can fold the rear seats down to gain 1,360 litres), rather than the hatchback of the ë-C4 (which offers 380 litres of boot volume, or 1,250 litres with the rear seats folded). So although the ë-C4 X has a boot rather than a hatchback, it has more space, and this is because of the car’s extra length – 4,600mm compared to 4,360mm for the ë-C4 – and all of the extra 240mm sits behind the rear wheels.
The interior of the ë-C4 X Shine is quite basic, and there’s not even any satnav. The exterior shares its slightly unconventional styling with the ë-C4.
The Citroën ë-C4 X was on test during a week when we had to drive from Manchester to Farnborough and back for Fully Charged LIVE, via Reading and central London. Previous EVs on test were typically over £70,000. At £35,190 the Citroën ë-C4 X was less than half the price of most recent EVs that we’d reviewed. So the question was whether the Citroën could still provide transport that was fit for purpose to cover 500 miles.
The one big plus point for the ë-C4 X was its comfortable driving experience. This is primarily due to its suspension. Citroen calls it “Advanced Comfort Suspension”, with double hydraulic stops front and rear. Whatever it’s called, it delivers good ride comfort on long motorway journeys – although the secondary ride quality when faced with large potholes and speed bumps isn’t as impressive.
The ë-C4 X’s overall driving experience is also easy to live with. The steering is light, but the downside is that it isn’t the sharpest of systems, and the handling isn’t tightly controlled. With front-wheel drive, you’re also likely to experience wheelspin at some stage when accelerating in the wet.
There are three drive modes – Eco, Normal and Sport – and performance is good in Sport mode. The ë-C4 X features the same gear selector that seems to be in virtually all current Stellantis EVs. There’s a button for Park at the top, and a button for ‘B’ at the bottom, to provide more brake regeneration. Between these two settings you move a switch to select R, N or D. The selector is small and fiddly and when parking the car and changing between D and R it’s easy for the gear selector not to engage the gear you want, which is likely to be because you haven’t held the lever in the desired position for long enough. At night the gear selector isn’t lit, so it’s hard to see.
The ë-C4 X’s interior is quite basic, and our test car didn’t even have satnav. However you can project Google maps from your smartphone onto the wide (but not very tall) touchscreen.
The touchscreen itself only has two physical buttons, which are below the screen – one for home and one for vehicle. If you press the home button you then have to press another button to select eg. radio. When using Apple CarPlay it’s not easy to access basic controls for the car’s infotainment system – permanently visible shortcut buttons are needed.
There are separate buttons for heating and ventilation, including dials for the temperature and for the fan, which is good, and the climate information is shown on the central screen. However the graphics on the climate buttons are quite hard to see in poor light conditions.
The ë-C4 X has a head-up display, although information is projected onto a piece of plastic on top of the dashboard rather than directly onto the windscreen.
For the benefit of the many people who contact us to complain about lane departure warning systems wrenching the steering wheel out of their hands and steering them towards cyclists rather than white lines, a fair amount of button-pressing is required to switch off the lane departure warning system, which otherwise can intervene sharply.
The ë-C4 X locks and unlocks itself if you approach the car with the keys; apart from potentially locking children in the car inadvertently, this also means that if the car is charging, it’s constantly stopping and starting the charging.
The Citroën ë-C4 X has a WLTP combined range of 221 miles, or 304 miles based on the city test cycle. On test, the range was displayed as 216 miles on average, but it didn’t translate to this real-world range at motorway speeds, when 180 miles was the maximum achieved.
The ë-C4 X doesn’t have heated seats or a heated steering wheel – these features would help to improve the range in cold weather by reducing the need for cabin heating.
The Citroën ë-C4 X has a maximum rapid charging rate of 100 kW, which results in a 0% to 80% charging time of 30 minutes at a 100 kW DC rapid charger. A home wallbox should give a 0% to 100% charge in 7 hours 30 minutes.
Unlike many other EVs, when you’re charging, the ë-C4 X doesn’t provide much information on the dashboard about progress.
Electric cars do not charge at their maximum charge rate for an entire charging session – their charge rate typically starts off high with a battery with a low state of charge, then the charge rate decreases as the battery charge increases. See the charge curve for the Citroën ë-C4 X from Fastned:
The Citroën ë-C4 X is available from £31,995 for the Sense trim level. The ë-C4 X Shine costs £34,495; Shine Plus is from £34,995. Prices are around £1,000 more than the Citroën ë-C4.
Despite being one of the more affordable electric cars, the Citroën ë-C4 X provided perfectly acceptable transport for a 500-mile trip. The car’s comfortable driving experience was its stand-out feature. Even though it didn’t have the extensive equipment list of many EVs that are sent to us to test – in particular, there was no satnav – thanks to Apple CarPlay, we survived. This probably shows that many EVs have lots of features that aren’t really essential. So if you’re looking for an electric saloon at a competitive price then the Citroën ë-C4 X should be considered. However be aware that the ë-C4 X is more expensive than the Citroën ë-C4, and you lose the practicality of a hatchback, even though the ë-C4 X’s boot is larger. The Citroën ë-C4 X is awarded a Green Car Guide rating of 7 out of 10.
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Paul Clarke, GreenCarGuide Editor
