Citroen ë-C4 and ë-C4 X review
8
Practical electric hatchback and saloon duo offer good value for money – but is it likeable?
Illya Verpraet & Matt Saunders
Published:
2 April 2025
- Introduction
- Design & styling
- Interior
- Engines & performance
- Ride & handling
- MPG & running costs
- Verdict
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- Introduction
- Design & styling
- Interior
- Engines & performance
- Ride & handling
- MPG & running costs
- Verdict
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As the various brands of the Stellantis juggernaut try to find their place and identity, Citroën appears to be morphing into French Skoda, and the Citroën ë-C4 (an electric Citroën C4) is one of the best examples of that.
Years ago, that Skoda comparison would have been an insult, but it certainly isn’t today. Skoda takes shared mechanicals and manages to make them just that bit easier to use, less pretentious and more practical.
Comparing the ë-C4 and ë-C4 X makes me wonder if the latter was planned when the former was designed. Surely a more conventional design for the rear end of the C4 and a bigger liftback for this car would have allowed Citroën to better appeal to a broader customer base?
The ë-C4 attempts a similar trick, taking the basis of a small car and building a bigger but cheaper one on top. So the ë-C4 has the same e-CMP platform as the Peugeot e-208 and is priced in line with it but is the size of the Peugeot e-308.
Citroën has just given it quite a comprehensive visual update to keep the family resemblance with the ë-C3 and to keep it fresh in a field with plenty of attractively priced alternatives like the Renault 5, upcoming Renault 4, MG 4 EV and Kia EV3.
There’s also a slightly weird saloon version of the ë-C4 called the ë-C4 X. It’s mechanically identical, so we will briefly touch on the differences where relevant.
https://www.drivenbuy.co.uk/autocar?car_make=citroen&car_model=e-c4&review=new&source=https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/citroen/e-c4
Verdict
Model tested:
Rating: 8
Citroen ë-C4 and ë-C4 X review
Styling is brought nicely up to date; still offers decent value, reasonable practicality and acceptable range.
Good
Good value
54kWh version has good efficiency
Fairly practical
Easy to use
Bad
Bigger battery is tied to top trim level
Digital cabin tech isn’t slick or intuitive enough
Unsatisfying driving experience
DESIGN & STYLING
8
Pros
Distinctive design, which facelift has only enhanced
Good use of a cheaper platform for a bigger car
Cons
Upgraded battery and motor are reserved for the most expensive trim
Towards the end of the last decade, Citroën set out on a path to give its future models an SUV look while avoiding the SUV drawbacks of a large frontal area and heavy weight that create more emissions. The Citroën C4 and ë-C4 hatchbacks were the first examples of that plan being put into action.
Quite interesting-looking, isn’t it? At 1520mm, it’s 25mm taller than the Ford Focus, and it runs tyres with up to 60-section sidewalls, which are positively balloonish by recent standards. There’s also lower-body cladding for fuller effect and a fastback sort of roofline. It’s a little shorter than the Toyota C-HR, itself barely a crossover, and again by about 25mm.
Like so many manufacturers, Citroën has got rid of its logo on the back of the hatchback (but not the saloon) and replaced it with a ‘Citroën’ script. Except the letters are not badges but stickers, which seems particularly cheap.
Who knew the BMW X6 would be so influential? This car has a less aggressive take on things, mind. Citroën is a company that’s often willing to make its cars look a little unusual, and that doesn’t do the C4 any harm.
For the 2025 facelift, the C4’s design was brought in line with Citroën’s latest design language, as seen on the Oli concept, the C3 and the C3 Aircross. This includes the redesigned logo, as well as a much more angular treatment for the headlights and tail-lights that works surprisingly well with the C4’s fairly curvy shape.
The ë-C4 was launched in 2020 with just one powertrain: a 50kWh (47kWh usable) battery with a 134bhp motor. In 2024, a longer-range option was added. The battery cells for it have a more nickel-rich chemistry, increasing total installed capacity to 54kWh (50.8kWh usable) and range as far as 260 miles on the WLTP combined cycle. And along with that battery comes a new hybrid synchronous drive motor that makes more power 154bhp but is also more efficient.
In practice, many buyers probably won’t consciously choose one or the other, because the powertrains are tied to the trim levels. You and Plus come with the 50kWh one, Max with the 54kWh one.
INTERIOR
7
Pros
Quite spacious and practical
Physical controls for HVAC
Cons
Slightly awkward driving position
Mediocre multimedia
The ë-C4’s spacious, boldly featured and imaginatively laid-out interior helps the ambience transcend the influence of some of the cabin’s cheaper-feeling materials. There’s a wide variety of materials and finishes, from traditional graining to modern technical graining and fabrics, including a bold sash down the door. Up front, there’s a very good amount of cabin storage, with various trays, bins and not one but two gloveboxes.
For the 2025 update, Citroën has played around with the colours and materials but hasn’t made any substantive changes to the design.
With their memory foam construction, the Advanced Comfort seats come with quite the billing. With the 2025 update, they’re supposedly even further improved, with 15mm-thicker foam.
In practice, the seats and driving position are a little peculiar. The seat material is indeed very soft and gives the impression it might swallow the occupant whole, but we didn’t find them more supportive or comfortable than most other seats. Like other cars on this platform, the C4 has quite a long-arm, short-leg driving position that doesn’t suit everybody. The seats are angled in a way that lessens the effect, but does create a semi-recumbent driving position.
Rear passengers have more leg room than in electric superminis like the 5 and e-208 but less than in the 4 EV or EV3. They also benefit from a pair of air vents and a single USB port.
At 380 litres, the boot occupies a similar territory relative to rivals. The ë-C4 X expands that to 510 litres, although it’s accessed via a notchback-style bootlid rather than a hatch. It’s a shallower space than the C4 hatchback offers but still quite long and wide and well able to swallow bigger suitcases and storage boxes, although it’s a little sparsely provisioned. (There are no power sockets or retention nets.)
Infotainment
All versions of the car get a 10.0in touchscreen infotainment system and a digital instrument cluster (5.5in originally and on You trim, 7.0in from 2025). Both are fairly clear, and you can customise them to show what you find useful.
Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are both wireless and well-integrated. Voice control works consistently well when you’re entering sat-nav destinations, and the system plots routes intelligently and with good live traffic information.
Unlike on Peugeot models with effectively the same interface, the ë-C4’s screens aren’t cluttered with climate controls, since there are separate physical buttons and dials for these.
This shared Stellantis interface is never the zippiest, but the touchscreen on our 2025 test car was particularly laggy and unresponsive – some of the worst we’ve found recently. This wasn’t the case on earlier test cars, so it may have been a glitch on that particular car.
ENGINES & PERFORMANCE
6
Pros
Quick enough
Cons
Doesn’t offer much control of regen and pedals could be more progressive
Not exactly scintillating performance
There are two pedals and a small, simple gear selector in the ë-C4, plus the option of a B mode, which gives greater lift-off deceleration but doesn’t allow for one-pedal driving; there’s always creep at low speeds, and there’s always some throttle-off regen. There are no controls for finer adjustment of battery energy regeneration, though, and while that keeps the driving experience simple, there are times when you miss them.
The car has plenty of instant pick-up around town and as you accelerate up to the national speed limit – at which point the 134bhp of the standard models begins to feel weedier. Even so, there’s very respectable performance and great drivability everywhere until that point.
You wouldn’t call either the accelerator or brake unpredictable, but both lack a bit of progression. The brake pedal is very soft.
With the top-level model, the extra motor power isn’t so apparent when the ë-C4 is picking up from low speeds, but it does deliver useful extra performance above 50mph, where that hybrid synchronous motor would also deliver most of its yield on improved running efficiency, you’d bet.
The catch is that you have to remember to use Sport driving mode or press through the kickdown switch in order to tap into the extra high-speed performance. If you don’t, motor power is capped at the same 134bhp of the standard car, and torque is the same 192lb ft at any rate.
RIDE & HANDLING
6
Pros
Creditable attempt at comfort with soft suspension
Hushed at speed
ADAS are fairly easy to disable
Cons
Lacks some ride isolation to be truly comfortable
Imprecise, uninspring handling
Adaptive cruise control isn’t great
The low-effort, comfort-centred dynamic character that Citroën aims for with its cars has been given another outing with the ë-C4 and executed fairly competently, although not exceptionally well.
Handling precision hasn’t been totally cast aside, though, because the truth is that this simply wouldn’t feel like a modern family car if it went down the road anything like a 1980s BX or 1990s ZX. There is softness and absorption about the ride gait but there aren’t extremes of float or body roll. Transverse ridges that work the suspension identically across the axles are absorbed really gently but asymmetrical axle inputs like sunken drains and smaller bumps aren’t dealt with so calmly.
Grip levels are medium light, but still strong enough to allow the ë-C4 to carry brisker cornering speeds around smoother bends. Steering that’s particularly light at low speeds is recalibrated for greater weight at higher ones, and especially so in Sport mode. So there’s no great risk of any sense of flightiness or sensitivity about the car’s handling – but equally no risk of any contact patch feel either.
Get too ambitious with your rate of progress (that electric powertrain doesn’t make it easy) and you will find the margins of the car’s roadholding quite subtly but effectively guarded by its always-on stability control system. The car is stable and understeers at the limit, but the electronics don’t allow you to find that out without a lot of commitment.
Comfort and Isolation
This is where the ë-C4 X feels like it should have excelled. In the end, it’s good – if a little way short of exceptional.
Citroen C4 news
Citroen C4 drops manual gearbox in design refresh
Citroen C4 drops manual gearbox in design refresh
Citroen to unveil radical new concept car at Paris motor show
Citroen to unveil radical new concept car at Paris motor show
Citroen launches longer-range EV powertrain for e-C4 and e-C4 X
Citroen launches longer-range EV powertrain for e-C4 and e-C4 X
My Week In Cars: New Steve Cropley/Matt Prior podcast (ep. 34)
My Week In Cars: New Steve Cropley/Matt Prior podcast (ep. 34)
Having low rolling resistance for a modern car and being fairly aerodynamic, the ë-C4 is generally quiet-riding. On Millbrook’s high-speed bowl, it generated 62dBA of cabin noise at a 50mph cruise, where a Volkswagen ID 3 and a 4 EV were 2dBA and 3dBA noisier (in less clement test conditions in the MG’s case).
Road surface noise is quite low, wind noise likewise. But Citroën’s hydraulic bump stops don’t always seem adept at filtering out bump-thump-style axle noise as the car crosses ridges and broken asphalt, so the suspension can at times feel a little under-damped and excitable.
With the reservations noted earlier, Citroën’s front seats offer decent space, adjustability and comfort, with the driver’s side offering some motorised adjustment and adjustable lumbar support in the case of our test car, which had an optional seat upgrade. The lane keeping system makes for fairly relaxed long-distance motorway driving (although you will want to turn it off on winding A-roads) and its other driver aids are mostly unintrusive.
Assisted driving notes
The entry-level ë-C4 X gets Citroën’s Standard Safety Pack, which includes a lower-tier autonomous emergency braking system with pedestrian detection and lane departure warning. Only on Max-trim cars is this upgraded to include AEB with cyclist detection and radar.
Max also get adaptive cruise control and blindspot monitoring. The former is a standard-issue Stellantis system that isn’t the quickest or smoothest, but by no means the worst we’ve tried.
The other systems work well enough, but as usual the lane keeping assistance and overspeed warning are far from perfect and frequently annoying. A prod of a button just under the infotainment screen brings up a menu via which you can disable them fairly easily.
MPG & RUNNING COSTS
9
Pros
Attractively priced
54kWh version is efficient, even on the motorway
Cons
54kWh version is restricted to the most expensive trim
The ë-C4 is quite a lot of electric car to be available from £27,360. With one or two exceptions, most EVs at the price point are supermini-sized and only one or two offer cabin space fit for two rows of adult passengers.
Curiously, the booted ë-C4 X is quite a bit cheaper than the ë-C4 hatchback, which costs from £27,650 in inferior You trim.
The version you really want is the Max, which costs £31,505 as an ë-C4 or £30,150 as an ë-C4 X. Max trim adds equipment such as heated seats, front parking sensors, a variable-height boot floor, and most significantly, the bigger battery pack and more efficient drivetrain.
Even so, that puts it in the same ballpark as a high-spec 5, which is much nicer car in every way, but also a much smaller and less practical one. It undercuts the 4 EV Long Range in Trophy trim by a small margin and the EV3 58.3kWh by a bigger one.
It’s frustrating that the upgraded powertrain only comes with the most expensive trim, because in our experience it’s the far superior option. We averaged 3.7mpkWh in mixed usage with it and even over 4.0mpkWh when navigating slower traffic, compared with low 3.3mpkWh in the entry-level version. That means the 54kWh version will be cheaper to run and has much more usable cruising range: 188 miles versus 155 miles.
VERDICT
Verdict
Model tested:
Rating: 8
Citroen ë-C4 and ë-C4 X review
Styling is brought nicely up to date; still offers decent value, reasonable practicality and acceptable range.
Good
Good value
54kWh version has good efficiency
Fairly practical
Easy to use
Bad
Bigger battery is tied to top trim level
Digital cabin tech isn’t slick or intuitive enough
Unsatisfying driving experience
Four years into the ë-C4’s lifecycle, the market around it has changed. On one side, there’s an influx of appealing supermini-sized EVs such as its ë-C3 sibling and the brilliant 5. On the other, there are slightly larger hatchbacks and crossovers, such as the 4 EV and EV3.
But with good price management, the ë-C4 has found itself offering something approaching the space and practicality of the latter at the price of the former. The ë-C4 X saloon remains an odd duck, but an even more attractively priced one.
There are gripes: its focus on comfort isn’t entirely successful, and the ë-C4 also suffers from a sluggish multimedia system. It’s also annoying that the drivetrain you want is tied to the top trim level.
That makes the 5 and EV3 much nicer cars, but one is significantly less practical and the other is more expensive. It seems the ë-C4 has really found its place.
