Citroen e-C4 review: running costs & insurance
The Citroen e-C4 should be a very cheap car to run, much like other electric cars of this size
| Insurance group | Warranty | Service interval | Annual company-car tax cost (20%/40%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22-23 | 3yrs/60,000 miles | 2yrs/16,000 miles | From £128/£256 |
There's a lot to be said for choosing an electric car like the e-C4 as your next family runabout. It is still more expensive to buy than its internal-combustion-engined sibling (£8,000-£10,000 depending on spec, to be exact), but the potential savings are great – no fuel to pay for, and the possibility of vastly reduced charging costs at home, plus lower servicing costs, zero road tax and, for company-car users, very low BiK (Benefit-in-Kind) tax.
It's a bit of a no-brainer if you do lots of shorter trips – a typical-use case for many of us.
Citroen e-C4 insurance group
Most e-C4s are rated in group 23 for insurance, though the most expensive Shine Plus trim is actually in the lower group 22 – likely due to its longer list of safety kit, which includes a radar-assisted Active City Brake system.
Whichever one you go for, however, you’ll enjoy lower premiums than if you’d opted for one of the Citroen’s siblings; the Peugeot e-2008 (groups 25-27) and Vauxhall Corsa Electric (groups 24 and 25) are both likely to be more expensive to insure. These are relatively high for cars of this size, but reflect the extra costs of repair that technology-packed cars may incur.
Warranty
The e-C4 is covered by Citroen's standard three-year/60,000-mile warranty, plus an eight-year/100,000-mile guarantee for its battery. This isn't quite as impressive as those offered by the likes of Kia (seven years/100,000 miles) and Hyundai (five years/unlimited miles), but still plenty to cover the usual three-year length of a typical lease.
Servicing
Citroen's Car Plan programme lets you spread the cost of maintenance. Generally, an electric car will require servicing less often than a petrol or diesel equivalent thanks to a relative lack of moving parts, and that applies here – the e-C4 has an interval of two years or 16,000 miles, whichever comes first – so you can expect to spend less.
Road tax
You don't have to pay any road tax (VED) on an e-C4 until 2025 thanks to its zero-emissions status, and it's exempt from the London Congestion Charge until 2025, too.
