• Interesting, funky interior design…
• … at the expense of ergonomics
• Fussy infotainment menus

How is the quality and layout?

Quality is pretty good, but the E-5008’s cabin is a nightmare to interact with thanks to Peuegot’s incessant need to overcomplicate its design. The car’s window switches make for a perfect example. Instead of mounting them on a flat panel, Peugeot stuck them on a ledge that falls away from the door card. That means you need to rotate your wrist the way it doesn’t want to turn in order to operate them.

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That centre console isn’t particularly practical, either. There’s a massive storage box on the passenger side, which I thought would be ideal for emptying stuff like my wallet and keys into. But, for the driver to access it, you need to reach over the artsy switch panel and blindly fumble around under the tweed overhang. That’s annoying when you’re chucking stuff into it and downright infuriating when you’re trying to retrieve something.

Infotainment and technology

Peugeot’s gone down the same route as BMW and combined its infotainment screen and digital gauge cluster into one giant 21.0-inch curved display. It looks great and it’s mounted high up on the dashboard which means you don’t need to drop your eyes far from the road to read navigation instructions. But there’s still some improvements to make.

The touchscreen is too far away to operate without hoisting yourself out of your seat, the menu design is fussy and the icons are small. That makes it difficult to fix your vision on the setting you’re trying to adjust while also maintaining your attention on the road.

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Plus, because there aren’t many physical controls, you’re forced to do battle with the touchscreen for even simple tasks like adjusting the cabin temperature. The Volkswagen ID. Buzz has its own flaws, but its infotainment system is far easier to operate on the move.

The E-5008’s saving grace is its i-Toggle menu. This is a small, customisable touchscreen on the centre console that allows you to directly jump to functions like the climate control menu or driver assistance tech. The icons on that screen are huge, so they’re easy hit on bumpy roads. It also saves you from meandering around the touchscreen. I’m a big fan.

Comfort

• Comfy front seats
• Ridiculous driving position
• Base model doesn’t have lumbar support

To be fair to Peugeot, the E-5008’s seats aren’t bad. The seat cushions are comfortable and there’s plenty of shoulder support. I missed lumbar support on my entry-level Allure model, but you can have it if you step up to the GT trim.

What irritated me more was Peugeot’s driving position. I’ve complained about this before and will continue to do so until someone at Peugeot takes notice and revises its design.

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The low-wheel-high-seat layout really doesn’t fit my body shape – and what’s especially annoying is that I’m not an unusually built bloke. I’m six foot tall and have normal-length limbs. But if I set the steering wheel to a height that’s comfortable for my arms, it totally obscures the range indicator and partially blocks the speedo. The picture below illustrates the problem. The camera was at my eye level.

As a result, to check how much battery I had left, I needed to crane my neck under the height of the wheel rim and peer through the letterbox-sized gap between it and the airbag. Not ideal when you’re trying to keep your eyes on the road.

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And I can’t negate the issue by moving the wheel down because, with it at its lowest setting, I’d clout myself in the leg with one of my hands every time I steered around a corner. It annoyed me within the first 10 miles and, by the time I’d spent a weekend with the car, I was positively fuming. I couldn’t wait to get back into my long-term MINI Cooper S.

However, shorter members of the Parkers team can entertain the setup. My advice to you, if you’re thinking about buying an E-5008, would be test drive the car for as long as possible to make sure you can live with the driving position. The worst result would be to get three weeks into a three-year lease before realising how uncomfortable you are in the car – and then slowly realising you’re stuck with it for another 33 months.