I have just recently taken delivery of a 2021 DS7 Etense Opera 225 with 11000 miles on the clock. Absolutley love the car, and great to drive.
But… and its a big but, the electric range is appauling and getting worse. Ive driven a plug in hybrid for the last 3 years, so im familiar with the effects drivining style and weather have on the range. My previous car was a Cupra Formemtor PHEV with a WLTP range of 36 miles, with careful.driving and in warm weather i could consitently get 32 -34 miles, in winter this would drop to minimum 22 miles on freezing cold days.
The DS7 is only showing 12 miles after a full charge, with me driving the car incredibly carefully and using regenerative braking. There is clearly something seriously wrong. I can’t get it into a DS Dealership till the 29th April. I find this totally unacceptable.
Mine (DS7 E-t 2020) has been down to 18 km prediction as its lowest this winter and at 30km as its highest when I picked it up in November last year…
I’m expecting these numbers to rise a bit come spring, but I suspect they will always be far from the 50 km as advertised.
I wish you luck getting anywhere with a DS dealer.
IT’s described as a premium brand, but customer service is anything but… no courtesy cars no collection and delivery.
I have an old model DS3, it’s due it’s annual service, I’m booked at the end of March, but will have to sit and wait.
If it was a Citroën, which I admit that it essentially is, I would like if a had a Dacia wouldn’t expect anything better, but don’t claim to be a premium brand like Mercedes BMW etc and not provide any equivalent service!
Hi Mark, im having the same problem with my DS7 E-TENSE prestige 70 plate. Ive been in out of the garge with it and had the same range issues, warning light for a traction fault. After getting Ds involved i finally got a new traction battery and on board charging unit but still getting around 16 miles. Ive been back onto DS and had back into the garage and they found no fault so Ds have dropped the case and told me if I’m not happy go to the ombudsman. The car is great to drive etc. Im now going through the finance company and even they are struggling to deal with the dealership and Ds to get answers. I’ve seen other threads on other platforms and people are having the same issue. Like yourself im doing everything by the book and still makes no difference.
I had mine in for service yesterday (and I got a Mustang Mach-E as sub for the day for 20 euro) and they specifically checked and ran tests for the battery after me mentioning to them that I only got 18-24 km during the past 3 months since I bought it.
Tests showed that there were no faults in the battery nor charging unit etc.
In other words, these numbers are to be expected.
Thats disheartening to hear. I appreciate that you never get the WLTP range, but to only get one third of that range must be contravening the trades description act.
Update… my car finally went in to DS Manchester today. To say im not happy would be an understatement. The service and attitude is dreadfulll. I went through the issues with the low electric range and was told that 12 -21 miles was normal and nothing they could do.
I was given a piece of paper showing expected ranges at certain speeds and temperatures.
I explained that i felt that the advertised range of 34 miles and only getting 12 in certain circumstances was misleading at best and at worst contravenes the trade description act. Again no useful comment from the service department.
I also asked them to look at the front suspension as it was making a grinding sound when you went over bumps.
To make matters worse the courtesy car i got (had to wait over two months to get a booking with a courtesy car) was a joke. A Citoen C3 Automatic, it hadnt even been cleaned and was full of dirt inside and the service warning light was on. I turn up in a £50k+ DS Etense and get given the cheapest car they had to drive. For a supposed premium brand this is as far from premium service as you can get.
As i explained if i had been made aware the expected ranges based on speed and temperature i wouldnt have bought the car. Such a shame as i love driving it, its just taken the pleasure away for me now.
Hi. I just bought my DS7 Opera with 20k on the clock. Im very disappointed with the electric range and wondered if anyone has managed to claim a new battery under the guarantee? It delivers about half of the mileage reading even on the flat, driving conservatively and on a warm day.
Having sold me the car the dealer wont return calls or emails!
Hi Brian unfortunately the advertised range and what you get are vastly different. I have a 21 DS7 225 OPERA ETENSE and the range is quite dissapointing. I got it into a dealership as i thought there was an issue. They checked and tested it and came back and said everything was fine.
The most i have ever had is 30 miles driving extremely carefully and a hot day. The worst is 12 miles on a cold winters day. The car is extremely sensitive to driving conditions and temperature. I previously had a Cupra Formemtor PHEV and that was a lot more consitent than the DS.
Unfortunately its highly unlikely you will have a fault. Try and speak to another DS dealership. Be warned though if they test it and dont find a fault you will probably get charged.
I have paid for an extended warranty on mine, its about £25 a month through DS. it just gives me piece of mind though.
Thanks Mark. Two things strike me: whatever happened to Trades Descriptions and what the test involves? Maybe the latter should be carried out by an independent tester. With such low mileage it would appear to be cheaper not to run exclusively on petrol.
I have a brand new DS4 E Tense, only picked it up 2 weeks ago and already I can see that the electric range is not going to be anywhere close to the advertised range.
A full charge shows as 30 miles range, yet on a 3 or 4 mile journey using Hybrid mode the range quickly drops to around 23-25 miles just on that single journey.
I’ve already found myself using E-save trying to spread the electric mileage further throughout the week on my way to and from work.
My son has the new Vauxhall Astra Ultimate PHEV and he regularly gets around 35 miles of electric range in Hybrid mode around town.
The DS4 is a stunner inside and out, but the E Tense Hybrid electric range is a big disappointment if I’m honest.
Quickly doing the maths, I’ve worked out that I would need to charge the car twice weekly and still have to put fuel in to get the same mileage that I was with just fuel.
Ok, I wouldn’t need to add as much fuel, but in money terms when calculating the cost of each charge and then adding the fuel cost, it actually works out more than when I was just using fuel in my last car to achieve the same milage.
I had a 7 e tense. When I took delivery of it it had 5000 on the clock. The first thing I did when I got it home is plug it in overnight. The following day I took it for a local drive to see how much the mileage in electric would go down; and when I got home it had used all the mileage on electric plus a couple of miles. It started at about 30 miles on electric. Unfortunately after DS went to do a job on the car it was found to have an internal damaged roof; so had to return it to the local garage for a complete refund. Anyway; before this happens I learned one thing. When fully charged the car learns your driving pattern and estimates the mileage on subsequent charges; and the mileage will change until it learns. I made a 80 mile trip in the summer fully charged; main roads and country roads and ran out of electricity at 11 miles to go. So basically the smoother you drive the better the mileage. Sorry for the long answer; however I hope that helps.
I’m sorry, but that would be 111 km on electric alone?
I have a very hard time believing that.
Unless you were driving the Stelvio pass downhill or something.
The highest anyone here has reported before is around 60 km, and you nearly doubled that?
You must have had hybrid or comfort mode activated and you simply didn’t notice when the engine kicked in. An easy mistake to do since our cars have very good soundproofing and it is actually quite difficult noticing the difference.
I know I only can tell by looking at the color of the speedo if the engine is running or not.
You must be right Jay. I read elsewhere that you should always use the navigation system to optimise the hybrid mileage. What isn’t clear to me is whether it is more efficient to average out the battery use in that way or flatten the battery and then drive on petrol.
It seems evident (as pointed out by Which magazine) that a PHEV are intrinsically inefficient because when driving electric you are carrying a heavy engine and when using petrol you are carrying a heavy battery. We buy them for efficiency on short journeys and lack of range anxiety on long ones.
To be honest, I can’t really tell the difference when using the navi and when not.
I’m sure there’s a difference, but I don’t think it makes a significant difference though.
My personal experience and opinion is:
I always use electric only if I can make it all the way on battery.
If #1 is not applicable, I try to use battery at low speeds only, and I tell the car to hold battery (at 10km and 20km range) when driving on motorway in order to have battery when coming into a city or just making a stop, or if there’s a risk for traffic jam ahead (battery is fantastic in traffic jams and queues).
I rarely use the e-save for charging, mostly for holding, because I don’t think charging is very efficient in the end.
And yeah, you’re spot on, a hybrid isn’t the best at anything, but it is a jack of all trades, kind of. For my current situation a hybrid is absolutely perfect.
I tend to juggle between hybrid and E Save depending on where I’m going and what I want to save some electric for.
There doesnt seem to be a one set way of using the system to give 100% max mileage each and every time.
On motorways I think its more economical to switch on E save to hold some electric back, but then when I hit a bit of off motorway traffic I knock E save off and leave the hybrid mode take over.
