What is it?

A mid-life face-lift for the chunky Peugeot 3008, originally launched in 2016, since when it has become Europe’s best-selling SUV, .

It’s one of those cars that seems bigger than it is and while Peugeot has not made any drastic changes, experts will notice a new grille, vertical LED daytime running lights and new LED headlights. There are also new LED light clusters at the rear and this all works very well on a car that was in pretty good shape anyway.

Apart from changes to materials and trim, not a lot has changed inside either: Trim levels have been rationalised into five grades, Active Premium, Allure, Allure Premium, GT and GT Premium. Base trim include keyless start, dual-zone climate control and CarPlay and Android Auto while the Allure adds a 10-inch infotainment screen.

Then there’s the fact that this is a Hybrid along with the various tax benefits this brings. All pretty good so far – then we come to price. At around £40,000 this plants the 3008 in German premium territory which is where it will bump up against those user-choosers in the SME fleet market who might be eyeing a badge rather than a car.

What’s it like to drive?

Under the bonnet, nothing has really changed with the facelifted model featuring the same engines as before. Our Hybrid test car came with a 1.6-litre petrol with 178bhp, there are more powerful hybrid versions available but these will take even further into £40K territory.

If all you are doing is short hops as you can get around 30 miles of electric motoring on a full change, hence the tax benefits. If you can charge up at home overnight, there’s no need to putting any fuel in the tank, but for longer trips you can expect mid-40s in terms of fuel consumption.

It’s possible to set the system to run purely electric, save charge for later, or even to use the engine to charge up the battery, but you will see fuel economy drop quite a bit.

The 3008 is built for comfort rather than speed and you’ll certainly feel that. Controls are all very light to the feel and rhe ride smooth as long as you don’t push-on too hard.

And inside?

I don’t know is it’s just me, but I did find the switchgear is little over complicated. There is a bank of push down buttons below the centre screen which bring up the menus, but they are not easy to see, particularly for those who eyesight is not what it once was. Once you are into the touch screen, things do become a bit easier to work with.

In terms of interior space, the Hybrid does lose out of cargo capacity because of batteries in the boot – 520-litre capacity is reduced to 395-litres. There’s a good amount of head, leg and shoulder room all round and there’s some nice materials used in there as well.