Peugeot Ion user reviews

David Richard 28 October 2012

Good: Everything

Bad: Nothing

Comment: This review is not objective. My wife and I drive an iOn for over five months totally love its spacious design that has been reduced to the max. There is no offset of the seats to avoid shoulder rubbing like in the Smart and the iOn has plenty of head room for tall people. We own one big Hartan baby buggy that would not fit into most middle class hatch back car but it fits into the iOn with one seat down. The distance it drives is amazing. "Electrified Tardies" on wheels is the wrong expression from a reporter who is confused on what he or she is looking at. The acceleration with 180 Nm torque is wonderful. You are gone while the gasoline car behind you is still trying to catch rpm to release the clutch. The power is delivered without delay. Because of its swift engine and no engine noise, I tend to constantly drive too fast. I have never experienced an issue with cross wind and the car is long enough that it does not nodding up and down like the Smart. You can drive over speed bumps with the same speed than other cars and the narrow wheels do not compromise handling in icy conditions at all. The 200 kg battery is evenly distributed below the chassis, giving it a low center of gravity that pulls the car down. Looking at physics, narrow wheels give a higher attachment pressure between the tire and the road and deliver a better grip in snow and rain. The width of the tire is mostly designed to meet an ideal adhesion pressure, while optimizing the car’s power grip and weight versus rolling resistance. So yes, the iOn copes even better in wet and icy conditions than most other cars especially those with wide tires (aquaplaning is caused by wide tires when the rain cannot drift fast enough to the sides to lift the car off the road till it loses traction).
My driving range is 100-120 km per charge that corresponds to 100 km/h resp. 80 km/h. It makes up to 200 km when driving in congested city roads with a 50 km/h speed limit. Conversely, reckless driving with 138 km/h (or lead foot) reduces the range to about 70 km. A Garmin, TomTom or any current consuming navigation tool is not needed as most people drive with a speech enabled iPhone that connects wonderfully to the Bluetooth system. The iOn’s hands-free calling quality is excellent, like the other person sits next to you because there is no engine noise.
The conclusion is wrong, because people drive less than 100km 90% of the time which makes the iOn the most suitable car in an congested environment. Just consider that gasoline prices are on the sharp rise and that many people could to many other things with the 300 Euros per month that they pay for gasoline. I never felt let down by the iOn. It does not take ages to charge because the iOn has enough power for the day and recharges overnight for less than two Euros per charge. Faster charging would only wear out the battery. I can trust its range more than a gasoline car because if the range is tight then I just reduce speed by 30% to add 70% range the remaining distance. The battery has 16 tickers. Each ticker is 6-9 km. With 110km/h the iOn makes 6 km per ticker. Reducing speed to 70m/h gives you 9 km per ticker. Now you can choose how far you like to go. In an emergency you reduce speed to 30km/h to crawl home. This gives you over 16km per ticker if you are smart enough to switch off heater, air-conditioner and radio which consumes 3-5 kWh. But no need to panic, in Switzerland for example, you should find an EKZ charge satiation every 10km on your smartphone while hundreds of private people share their charging station with you for free. Charging up two tickers per hour while you enjoy yourself at the destination or stop over to get some food, answer a few emails on your iPad or reading the news. The iOn is a zero cost car which we totally love, but there are many people out there who do not understand how to drive it.