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Quick Drive: Peugeot 3008 Diesel Hybrid

Driving a hybrid for the first time is quite possibly, apart from learning to ride a motorcycle, the most disconcerting motoring experience I've had in my life, period.

This week I had the chance to take out the new Peugeot 3008 Diesel-Hybrid out for a spin while we shot it for the magazine. It wasn't only more than strange to turn the key on and hear nothing yet be able to drive away in silence, but was an eye opener for me into the appeal of such a vehicle in the urban environment.

The 3008 is quite possibly the most well adapted urban lifestyle cars I have ever driven, and that is without it's key selling point of the frugal as **** diesel-hybrid. The 3008 has bucketloads of storage space, so the family pooch, kids, sportsgear and kitchen sink all could comfortable fit in the boot, and that is without even folding the fold flat rear seats down.

I imagine it would be well suited for the tradesman who needs a jack of all trades car to shuttle the family around and then chuck the work gear in to head to work, as not only do the rear seats fold down, so does the front passenger seat. Need to transport a ladder/2m plank of wood/dead body/ small tree inside the car? No problem!

Other intuitive features include a cavernous center console storage space, fold down rear tailgate to assist with loading things into the boot, and a scroll wheel with the options of sport, and 4WD as select-able options for the 3008.

That said, Sport isn't exactly sporty, but it is a hybrid after all, and a diesel at that.

It does however look great in shop windows as you are making your way through traffic and knowing that apart from RUCs, NZ's extremely out of date diesel taxing system, you're using next to no fuel. Which would make it the ideal road trip car to see the country in my book.

Would I buy it?
If I had a family I needed to cart around in comfort with heaps of space, yes. But thankfully I don't.



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