Written by Tom Webster Updated: 23 March 2023

In various dimensions the Citroen e-C4 X is bigger and yet less practical than C4 it’s based on. Taller, and with larger luggage capacity, it seems like an ideal upgrade for family use, but the hatchback boot is swapped for saloon security and cleaner lines. Just what is going on here?!

Report 1: Welcome

I had quite a few nitro-fuel powered models growing up – a fly-by wire aeroplane that flew in circles while you span on the spot, a helicopter that disappeared in high winds on its maiden voyage, and of course a succession of remote-control cars.

To a ten-year-old petrolhead these were the biggest source of unfulfilled exhilaration possible. A car with a real engine! That I can drive myself! Except of course, for every minute of joy came another 99 of abject faffery.

Neither YouTube nor Google existed then and so I had about as much chance of learning the dark art of tuning a nitro motor as I did solving a Rubik’s Cube. That’s before you address the issues of storing nitro fuel, and once running, the noise and the unwanted attention it attracted.

Now I have a son of similar age, I converted us to Lipo-battery remote-control cars with about as much hesitation as you see at the start line of a 100 metre Olympic final. They’re just better – almost zero set-up time, silent in operation, and clean enough to be stored on a bookshelf inside the house. Electricity is the future of miniature propulsion.

How is this relevant to the Citroen e-C4 X?

You’d think this enthusiasm for rechargeable propulsion would scale up from 1/10^th to full-sized daily transportation too, but so far, I’ve been pretty wary of electric vehicles. It doesn’t help that we don’t have a wallbox charger at home, but I just like engines too much.

So, this Citroen e-C4 X has a bit of an uphill battle on its hands in terms of convincing me. In terms of size, it’s more compact than the C5 X long termer it replaces but has a bigger boot. I liked that car a lot, but its large footprint and small luggage capacity were my principal complaints. So the EV is off to a flying start.

I also really liked the old C4 Cactus in all its incarnations, and this car traces its roots and ethos back to that one. A bit weird, but ultimately focussed on making me and my family as comfortable as possible – that’s is the overarching theme in this product line.

What version is this?

We can dive into the full spec in a later update but for now you need to know that this is a Shine Plus model with a 50kWh battery. That’s about half the capacity of a larger, more powerful EV, but still comes with the promise of 220 miles of range when full.

Of course, this depends hugely on how and where you drive (as it does with an ICE car, in fairness) with fast motorway journeys sapping the power at a much quicker rate than pottering around town. Still, 100kW charging means you only need 30 minutes to fill the battery back up to 80%.

Trouble is, there are caveats here too – you only get that charging rate in ideal circumstances, such as being hooked up to a 100kW DC charger on a warm day with no other EVs around. And even then, you won’t get 100kW for the duration of the charge, because it’s slower at the start and end.

How fast has the Citroen e-C4 X been charging?

I’ve been getting rates in the 20 and 30kWs during the depths of winter, and although it’s improving now the weather’s turning, I’ve still only seen speeds around 50-60kW.

This is painting a negative picture because regular rapid public charging is unlikely to be the norm for most EV owners who have wallboxes at home – and I can charge seamlessly from any percentage to full during the hours I’m at work, on the 22kW sockets at the office.

It’s been a bit of a learning curve, but we’ve adapted to it quickly, and my early impressions are that the benefits of electric power far outweigh the negatives. It’s quiet, smooth, with plenty of torque to make easy progress. Those are the basic requirements ticked, for a start.

Update 2: What’s it like to drive?

The most important topics to tick off here are performance and range, because those still loom large in the mind of potential electric car buyers.

It’s important to note that the e-C4 X isn’t the only version of this car you can buy (it’s not even the only electric version), with petrol and hybrid models available too.

In theory this means a wide variety of choice for buyers, but the fact the e-C4 X isn’t built as a dedicated EV means there are some compromises over a car only available in electric form.

That’s because as well as having to leave space for a battery, the chassis also needs to make provision for a petrol motor in the ICE version. Therefore, you don’t get a spacious front boot like on a Tesla Model 3, but that’s something few cars this size offer anyway, EV or not.

What it does mean is a lack of choice when it comes to range – rivals like the VW ID.3 and MG4 offer extended models with 77kWh batteries, as well as entry-level versions similar to the e-C4 X’s 50kWh offering.

This promises 220 miles to a full charge, and I’ve been getting about 150-180 miles in real-world driving, with most of this test taking place in single-figure temperatures. If I do a lot of motorway miles this figure drops off rapidly – 60 miles on fast roads the other day dragged 120 miles of range from the battery.

In the cold weather I think I’d find it hard to recommend to anyone regularly driving 100+ miles a day, but in theory those are the minority. For town and occasional country use it’s spot on though, with that relatively smaller battery keeping the overall cost of the vehicle down.

Since we took delivery of this long termer, a 54kWh version has been released, and this gives you a promised 260 miles of range and 156hp (the standard car is 136hp), so that’s a decent power hike.

More miles in the tank would be useful for longer journeys but an extra 4kW is not likely to be enough to convince Glaswegians who commute into London, for example. If you have to travel more than 120 miles on the motorway you’re going to need to research rapid chargers in advance.

The good news is that the e-C4 X is capable of charging at 100kW, and therefore filling from 20-80% in under 30 minutes, or adding 58 miles in just ten minutes. Thing is I’ve yet to see anything like 100kW charging at a public DC station – in the colder months I’d be lucky to get more than 30kW.

This has improved with the warmer weather (and changing my charging habits to try and make sure I’m the only person at the station) but even then 60kW has been the maximum. Thankfully because the battery is only 50kWh, I can pretty much guarantee a full charge in an hour.

Home charging from a 7.4kW wallbox takes 7.5 hours from flat to full, and I’ve never had a problem getting to 100% at the 22kW office charger during my work hours. This is where I’ve done the majority of battery fills, and in fairness it has been a flawless process.

In terms of performance you can expect 0-62mph to take at least ten seconds – I say at least because I leave the e-C4 X locked in Eco mode, and this restricts the power below what you get in Normal or Sport modes.

Mostly this is to save battery charge but also because it’s so much smoother and nicer to drive in this setting, with the throttle becoming increasingly choppy in the faster settings. It genuinely doesn’t feel like a downgrade to drive like this all the time – the e-C4 X excels at being comfortable and relaxing, not fast, so why not use it in a mode that maximises this character?

I’ve never had a problem getting up to speed on slipways or overtaking on single carriageway roads, and the electric torque delivery is more immediately available than a petrol or diesel car that would likely need to shift down a gear to pull away with the same vigour. For family use it’s pitched perfectly, really.

It’s also a bit firmer sprung than my outgoing Citroen C5 X, and I say that as a positive thing, because the suspension is still incredibly soft, but it’s less floaty and disconnected from the tarmac than the bigger car. Those prone to car sickness, or just kids in general, seem to prefer this set up over the C5 X.

The handling is also a bit more responsive as a result, with lots of the car’s weight positioned low down and better body control from the firmer set up, it rolls less in corners – as long as you don’t overdo it with the steering wheel, which is very light.

Much like the C5 X in that case, it’s not trying to be a hot hatch or a sports saloon, allowing it to major on being easy and relaxing to drive. The fact I’ve always got half an eye on the range dropping means I wouldn’t want it to be any more fun to drive quickly, anyway.

Update 3: Practicality

The word “practicality” takes on new meaning when we’re talking about electric cars, because it’s not just the passenger or luggage space that factors into how well something like the Citroen e-C4 X will fit into your life.

However, as we’ve covered range and charging speed in the previous update, we’ll be focussing instead purely on how this car works as a box for transporting people and things.

The most obvious talking point is the boot, given that the Citroen C4 is a hatchback, and this car is something of an SUV/coupe/saloon hybrid. Everything in front of the rear doors is unchanged from the hatchback, so let’s have a look at how things are different in the back.

For a start, rear passengers get a bit of extra room compared with the C4, and that’s down to the fact the X is 240mm longer overall.

The wheelbase remains the same, and this extra length is shared both inside the car and in the luggage compartment, but we’ll come to that later. I’m 6 foot 2 and I have plenty of legroom even sat behind my own elongated driving position, which is impressive.

Head space is a little tight owing to the more dramatic descent of the roofline, but it’s still acceptable to ask adults to sit in the back, even on longer journeys. If you have particularly tall friends they’ll be more comfortable in the front, naturally.

For my kids it’s perfect though, with plenty of space for their bulky car seats. Apparently the seat backs are reclined by a further 27 degrees, and I’m not sure whether this is the reason, but their boosters just seem to fit nicely in there.

The boot measures a generous 510 litres, which is 130 litres more than the hatchback, believe it or not. This is a very useful capacity and may catch your eye in the brochure if outright luggage space is a priority.

Trouble is though, because it has a saloon opening rather than a hatchback, it’s really hard to actually use all of that space. I really can’t fathom why this decision was made – I know this format has an appeal for business-people who are happy to trade outright practicality for security, but surely this is a car aimed at family or personal use?

I can’t help but think how much easier the e-C4 X would be to recommend if it had a saloon body with hatchback boot opening like an Audi A5 Sportback, so you could make the most of all of that litreage. It’s honestly quite hard to reach the rearmost corners.

It’s also a pretty basic space, although there is a small amount of underfloor storage for your charging cable – although I found I had to wind it round carefully and slot the bulky plug ends into place just so in order to get the lid to close on it. So normally I just put it in the main boot.

The back seats drop down in a 60/40 split, which is useful for getting larger items home from the shops, or for posting a mountain bike in before and after a ride (which I did several times as you can see from the mud above). That’s largely because the e-C4 X doesn’t come with rails to attach roof bars (and then a bike rack) to, so you have to retrofit the horizontal bars to the roof.

Again this feels like a misstep for a car that is positioned as a SUV-alike off-roader, but I suppose it’s more to do with preserving that coupe roofline.

You don’t get a totally flat floor with the seats down, and while my car came with a load-through hatch, it took several attempts to work out how to open it. Basically, it won’t unless the middle seat headrest is popped up.

This sounds annoying but I actually found it very useful – at least twice on any car journey my kids will try to open the load through hatch in order to access the snacks we’ve put in the boot, but in the Citroen they were foiled by the fact it won’t open without the headrest deployed. Ha ha!

Up front the e-C4 X is back to aping the hatchback car, which is fine, because there are some clever touches for storing your stuff.

There’s a cover for the two cupholders to keep things neat and tidy, a decent cubby box under your elbow, and a shelf up front for storing and charging your phone (providing it has capacitive charting, of course).

Something that has really stuck with me though is the fact that the wipers only sweep the screen once after you’ve squirted it with screenwash. Normally you get at least three wipes, and yet for some reason the Citroen stops at one. I figured this was a setting somewhere in the menu but I’m yet to find it.

One very clever function is the integrated tablet holder, which pops out of the dashboard so you can clip your device into it. There’s a slim drawer just under the holder itself where you can store your tablet (or in my case, sweets I don’t want to share with the kids) ready to deploy at the start of a long journey.

The included tablet case comes with a clever screen that means it can only be viewed from the dead ahead position, meaning the driver won’t be distracted by it. This makes it a slight faff to install your tablet in the first place, but it’s an understandable addition.

My only complaint is that after me, my wife is the next least likely person to need a tablet installed in front of their face in order to stay entertained. Really, it’d be better if this smart gadget mount was pointed at the rear seats on a constant rotation of Bluey episodes.