“Tangibly more practical and interesting than a 308, this is SUVs done properly.” So said, um, us when we reviewed the Peugeot 3008. It’s fair to say it’s a shining light in an oft-uninspiring corner of the market, a crossover-y thing that genuinely makes use of its inflated hatchback aesthetic while looking quite dapper.
Thus the mid-life update is subtle and respectful. Peugeot has shifted a deeply impressive 800,000 of them since 2016, so it’d be foolish to put its blueprints through the shredder.
The biggest headlines are in the technology department. It is 2020 after all (by which we mean ‘the digital age’, not ‘the year of the global disease’). The last 3008 debuted Peugeot’s i-Cockpit, and this updated one gets the latest version, with a ‘12.3in digital headset’ in place of dials and a new 10in touchscreen that’ll speak freely with whatever flavour of phone you’ve laid down on the wireless charging pad.
Listing every bit of driver assist tech would likely fill up the rest of TG’s allocated portion of The Internet, but highlights include night vision (unique to the small SUV segment, for now) and traffic sign recognition software that goes beyond just speed limits and will alert the driver to more intricate road signage. Whether this includes ‘no vehicles carrying explosives’ or ‘hedgehogs crossing’ remains to be seen, but we fully intend to find out.
The new 3008 looks usefully different on the outside, making those sweet I-Spy points a bit easier to score if you ever need to tell it apart from the car it replaces. The front gets new headlights and a frameless grille, while the rear lights are now fully LED as standard. The fronts are in higher trim levels, but all 3008s get something called ‘foggy mode’, which sees traditional fog lights replaced by a more intelligent, lower intensity use of the regular lamps. Oncoming drivers when it’s not actually that foggy, rejoice.
Engines? It does indeed have some, with petrol, diesel and hybrid options. Again, it’s 2020. The petrol comes in 130bhp and 180bhp tune (the former available with a six-speed manual, the latter an eight-speed auto as standard), the diesel in 130bhp form only. Most interesting are hybrids, available in 225bhp, front-driven and 300bhp, all-wheel-driven form.
They’ll take anywhere between around two and eight hours to fully charge depending on what you plug them into, with Peugeot offering numerous options when you’re ticking the boxes online.
Which brings us to the fact your 3008 can be fully ordered via the internet (even if you’re trading a car in), presumably arriving in a vastly oversized cardboard box with balls of brown paper to fill out the unused space. A car you don’t need to leave the safety of your house to purchase. Because it is, after all, 2020.
