DS N°8

French premium brand starts afresh (again) with a big electric executive car

- FELIX PAGE

TESTED 9.6.25, VAUD, SWITZERLAND ON SALE NOVEMBER

Welcome to what DS was always supposed to be. With its recent past as essentially a vendor of posh Citroëns swept under the rug, Stellantis's boutique French brand has aspirations of moving into the luxury market, but with this bespoke new N°8 flagship is making a renewed push to lure buyers away from the German executive brands.

On first encounter with this genre-bender, with its lofty ride height, fastback roofline and limousine-like rear doors, rivals don't immediately spring to mind, but the Polestar 4, Mercedes GLC and Audi Q6 E-tron are cited as key benchmarks. Importantly, though, DS has priced the N°8 more in line with cars from the class below (think Q4 E-tron) to give it an edge when it comes to value for money.

As DS's recent struggles show, the premium EV segment is a notoriously tough part of the market - particularly for a newish brand that has still to crack the UK in the same way that, say, Polestar and Cupra have in the same sort of timeframe.

The N°8 indirectly replaces the combustion-engined 9 saloon as DS's flagship, and if that car's performance is anything to go by (nine sales last year and just 139 in the four years it was available), it's going to have a tough time luring fleet buyers down the road to the diamond-clad DS dealership on design and equipment alone.

It has more than a fighting chance on paper, though, courtesy of its more crowd-pleasing crossover-ish styling, plus some compelling performance and equipment attributes.

Starting at £50,790 and topping out at £63,290 for the most potent version, the N°8 is cheaper across the board than its closest Swedish and German contemporaries, and with a massive maximum range of 466 miles from the longest-legged variant, it's got them (and nearly all other mainstream EVs) licked for endurance, too.