Ford Puma Gen-E review

Ford Puma Gen-E verdict

Ford couldn’t go too far wrong by making an electric Puma. The Puma Gen-E is a welcome addition to the class and keeps many of the best-selling petrol Puma’s virtues, while bolstering Ford’s EV range. However, by starting with an already ageing platform, there’s been a limit to how big a battery Ford could squeeze in, and the range figures and recharging abilities are only just competitive for its price and size. The Gen-E is sure to do well, but some rivals already beat the Puma’s figures.

Details, specs and alternatives

You’ll probably be familiar with the Ford Puma. No, not the pretty 1990s coupe, but the slightly less feline supermini-based crossover that arrived in 2019 and has gone on to become one of the UK’s consistently best-selling cars. After Ford ditched the Fiesta, it’s become the brand’s de facto small car, which can’t have hurt its sales, but it’s taken six years for Ford to offer the Puma in electric form. As of 2025, that changes with the Puma Gen-E.

It’s the fourth prong in Ford’s electric SUV lineup, sitting at the bottom with a £29,995 starting price, below the £40k Explorer, £42k Capri, and £43k Mustang Mach-E. If nothing else, its lower price avoids the confusion of getting too close to its three bigger siblings, but the Puma Gen-E also has one of the toughest jobs to do, since it goes head-to-head with established rivals like the Peugeot E-2008, Kia EV3, Volkswagen ID.3, Volvo EX30, and Skoda Elroq, give or take a few grand here and there.

The Gen-E range is fairly simple to follow, with a single battery and motor combination (43kWh and 166bhp) and just two trim levels, Select and Premium. Select gets 17-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, a heated windscreen, a rear view camera and rear parking sensors, and cruise control as standard. Premium goes further, as the old Ford tagline used to say, with 18-inch alloys, an electric tailgate, matrix LED headlights, and a 10-speaker Bang & Olufsen sound system.

The Puma Gen-E turns out to be just as likeable as the regular car, helped by similarly nimble handling, fizzy low-down performance, plenty of kit, and an unexpectedly massive boot for such a compact car. It also shares the regular Puma’s deficiencies, such as a firm ride, though perhaps the biggest miss is that as a late-comer to the party, the Gen-E lags behind the kind of range we now expect from cars in this class. A claimed 234 miles, with a real-world figure around the 180-mark, plus so-so charging rates, is nothing special in 2025, at least for a model costing upwards of £30k.

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Ford has kept things simple with the Puma Gen-E, offering just a single battery pack and motor combination. That battery pack is a 43kWh unit, to go with the 166bhp and 290Nm motor powering the front wheels.

The upshot is a 234-mile range, with 100kW fast charging capability when you need a top-up out on the road, good for a 10-80 per cent boost in around 23 minutes.

All those numbers sound good for a small-ish car like the Puma in isolation, but when you stack it up against rivals you realise it’s actually a little short of the best. Most cars in this class now have more than 50kWh of capacity at their disposal and will return (give-or-take) 200 miles of real-world range, while many will charge at more than 100kW. Despite good efficiency (we’ve seen 4.3mi/kWh in mixed driving), you’ll be more likely to see 180 miles of range from the Puma Gen-E, and it won’t top up quite as quickly.

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The Ford Puma Gen-E scores a win over some similarly-sized rivals with relatively low insurance groups. At group 19, it’s well below that of a Volkswagen ID.3 (group 25 minimum) or Kia EV3 (a chunky group 34 minimum). The Puma’s ubiquity may help it here; even being electric, repair prices should be modest for a car based on one of the UK’s best-sellers.

Other costs are likely to be low too. Ford’s three-year, 60,000-mile warranty is nothing special, meeting the bare minimum expected these days, as does its eight-year/100,000-mile battery warranty, but two-year unlimited-mileage servicing means you won’t have to think too hard about maintenance.

EVs now attract VED car tax, so the Puma will set you back £10 in year one (no big deal, we reckon) and £195 a year thereafter. No Puma stretches past £40,000 (and shouldn’t do even if you try your hardest with the options list), so there are no worries about VED surcharges. Like all EVs, it’s also in the lowest 3 per cent Benefit-in-Kind bracket for company car users.

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There’s just a single motor option in the Gen-E powering the front wheels (like combustion versions of the Puma) to the tune of 166bhp and producing the usual-for-an-EV punchy 290Nm of torque.

Acceleration is well down on the 6.7-second 0-62mph time of the old departed “proper” Puma ST, but at eight seconds flat, it’s a little closer to the 7.4 seconds of the current mild-hybrid ST, and quicker than the rest of the Puma range. It’s also competitive with similarly-sized electric crossovers: around a second quicker than a Peugeot E-2008 and only a little shy of the more expensive Kia EV3. Weight that’s 300kg above a regular Puma, but not too excessive for an EV, helps here.

It feels brisk enough too, at least at low speeds, and Ford has managed to maintain a decent proportion of the Puma’s chuckable and engaging handling, though back to back you’d probably notice the effect of the extra mass. In true Puma style you’ll also notice the unsettled feeling to the ride at low speeds. While nicely damped, the Puma, and by extension the Gen-E, is distinctly on the firm side for this class.

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The Puma Gen-E gets the same updated dashboard design as the rest of the Puma range post-facelift, which is a good thing. What it lacks in flair doesn’t really matter, since the previous Puma hardly had an interior for the ages and most of its rivals are a little dull too (with notable exceptions like the Peugeot E-2008), but it’s neat, fairly unfussy, and won’t scare off drivers more used to non-electric vehicles.

One change is the centre console, which obviously no longer needs to house a gearlever (or a manual handbrake) so you get a trio of cupholders and a wireless charging pad instead. The gear selector has moved to the steering column, like on several of its rivals.

Infotainment comprises a 12-inch touchscreen, which occupies most of the central dash. It’s swallowed up the old physical heating and ventilation controls too, which is a bit of a step backwards for usability, but the screen layout is clear, the menus are intuitive, and you can use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto to avoid the slightly clunky built-in navigation.

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Somehow, Ford has found more space in the Puma Gen-E’s boot than in the regular car, at 523 litres to 456, so clearly that battery isn’t getting in the way. This extends to 1,283 litres by flipping the rear seats down (regular Puma: 1,216 litres). Part of that comes from the 145-litre ‘Gigabox’ under the boot floor, which is drainable too, and handy if you want to stash dirty boots in there for instance. As the Puma already had a decently-sized boot for a relatively compact car (it’s one of the smaller models in this class), practicality is off to a great start.

Rear passenger space isn’t quite so generous; there have to be limits somewhere, we suppose. The battery does encroach here, pushing the floor up and reducing under-thigh support for rear-seat passengers, and headroom is a bit of a squeeze too. Things are better up front, where there’s a pair of excellent, supportive seats, and more storage than in the combustion versions, thanks to the newly-acquired centre console space.

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Electric power is a change fundamental enough that Euro NCAP’s four-star rating for the regular Puma (downgraded from five in a 2022 re-test) doesn’t apply to the EV, though if it’s wildly different we’d be surprised. The Gen-E comes equipped with all the basic safety features you’d expect from a car in this class; think cruise control with an Intelligent Speed Limiter, Driver Alert, Lane-Keep assist, pre-collision assist, rear parking sensors, a rear-view camera and speed sign recognition, while an optional Driver Assistance Pack throws in lane centering, predictive speed assist, lane-change warning and a 360-degree camera.

Reliability might be more of a mixed bag. Ford’s a regular Driver Power underperformer, finishing 30th from 32 brands in 2024’s survey, though the Gen-E at least avoids some of the combustion engines and transmissions that let down some of Ford’s older models. The larger Mustang Mach-E hasn’t proven too troublesome either, so buyers will be hoping some of that rubs off on the Puma Gen-E.