DEFINITELY HOME ON THE RANGE (some text hidden) --NONE--

By Jonathan Crouch

If you want a Citroen e-C5 Aircross, then you probably want this 97kWh Long Range version. Jonathan Crouch explains why.

Ten Second Reviewword count: 59

A curious government grant strategy has created a situation where choosing the 97kWh Long Range version of Citroen's e-C5 Aircross mid-sized full-electric family SUV is a bit of a no-brainer. Like its Comfort Range smaller-battery showroom stablemate the top version of this electric crossover is spacious, well priced and assertive. Dealers must wish they'd had this car years ago.

Backgroundword count: 88

More full-battery models are qualifying for the highest £3,750 level of government Electric Car Grant. Here's another of them, the Citroen e-C5 Aircross Long Range. We've already reviewed the e-C5 Aircross in its Comfort Range 73kWh form, but for reasons best known to the Inland Revenue, that model only qualifies for the lower £1,500 level of grant. Which makes it effectively redundant as this Long Range model costs virtually no more with its higher grant deducted and gives you significantly more driving mileage. Let's take a closer look.

Driving Experienceword count: 406

The 322 mile range figure of the e-C5 Aircross in its 73kWh standard form isn't too bad by segment standards, but there's every chance that, as a family, you might sometimes find it a bit restricting. So it's difficult to see why you wouldn't choose the Long Range 97kWh version we're focusing on here, given that thanks to differing government grant levels, the two variants retail at much the same price in the UK. With the Long Range model, range jumps substantially - up to 421 miles, and the extra weight of all those additional battery cells is mostly accounted for by an increase in output from 210hp to 230hp. As evidenced by the 0-62mph times which with the Long Range version actually improves fractionally to 8.8s, en route to the 106mph top speed that all e-C5 Aircross models share. One of the things we criticised with all the Stellantis Group STLA-Medium-platform mid-sized SUV designs we tried before this one (namely the Peugeot 3008 and the Vauxhall Grandland) was heavy weight. And that meant a clunky ride, particularly in the EV versions. This C5 Aircross must use that overly weighty platform too, but the ride you get with it will be nowhere near as bad as it is on, say, a Peugeot E-3008 because Citroen has carried forward to this car a bit of clever damping tech. Namely the 'Progressive Hydraulic Cushion' suspension system that it introduced on the first generation C5 Aircross. The name of this model might suggest this to be an air-sprung set-up, while the current trend might suggest it to be driver-adaptive. Neither of these solutions though, fits with the approach Citroen must take at this price point. The company lost money building too much damping complexity into its affordable cars in the '60's and '70's and in developing this SUV, it wasn't about to make the same mistake again. So what we've got here instead is an ordinary everyday spring-and-damper set-up that's been re-imagined in a rather clever way. In ordinary cars, such a system usually works with rubber bumps stops that the suspension coil crashes against over bumps at the top and bottom of wheel travel. The 'Progressive Hydraulic Cushions' set-up replaces these stops with hydraulic dampers. These cushion those impacts over things like speed humps and tarmac tears and allow the fitment of softer springs and dampers, producing the exemplary ride quality that Citroen claims this car can deliver.

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