New electric Peugeot e-408 is not what it seems

There is little better than being immersed in the irrelevant at the start of your automotive week. Anyone who enjoys reading about striking models or special choices that car manufacturers make at model level will definitely enjoy reading this. Today we focus our attention on a new electric Peugeot e-408, a car that – despite its name suggesting otherwise – has nothing at all to do with ‘our’ electric Peugeot e-408.

The Peugeot 408/e-408 as you know it here is called 408X in China.

You probably already expected that we would digitally travel to China for this new electric sedan from Peugeot, the country where special things often happen for those who are used to the European car landscape. We dug up the Peugeot e-408 in these photos from the database of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. As usual, we also have the first information about the electric sedan. It is 4.75 meters long, has a wheelbase of 2.73 meters and weighs 1,592 kilos. The Peugeot is propelled by a 163 hp electric motor. That’s all well and good, but what exactly is it?

The Peugeot 408 in China is a sedan version of the previous 308.

The electric Peugeot e-408 that the Chinese joint venture Dongfeng-Peugeot is marketing in China is a special one. First of all the name: e-408. In Europe you know it from the electric variant of the 408, a liftback that is related to the current generation of Peugeot 308. The Peugeot 408 also exists in China, although it is known there as the Peugeot 408X. Why? We know that too. In China, Peugeot sells a completely different 408. In June last year we were already able to show you the updated Chinese Peugeot 408. In fact, this is a sedan version of the previous generation Peugeot 308 on which Peugeot has screwed on a more modern and more similar snout to that of the current 308 – and European 408. The Peugeot 408 basically dates back to 2014 and was also under the knife in 2018. But we’re not there yet.

An EV version from Fukang already existed of the Chinese 408. It is now also available with Peugeot badges.

Dongfeng has been selling simplified versions of Peugeot models in China for years under the brand name Fukang. There was already an electric variant of the Chinese 408 that was sold by Fukang. Now car brand Peugeot is also getting a version of this in China, although it apparently does not believe that the electric e-408 needs to have the current Chinese 408 front. In short: this electric e-408 is the far-Peugeot version of the electric Fukang ES600 that originally started life as a Peugeot. Autoland, please never change.