DS 7 review

Study the spec sheet carefully and you might notice something unusual: the E-Tense 4x4 300 model has the same engine and motor specs, save for a lower system output, at 296bhp. The difference lies in the inverter. The 360’s uprated item allows the electric motors to deliver peak power for longer, thus syncing up better with the petrol engine’s powerband and resulting in the higher system output.

To further mark out the 360 as the sporty version, it gets suspension that is lowered by 15mm compared with the other DS 7s, unique wishbones that give a wider track (24mm more at the front, 10mm at the rear), 380mm front brakes with four-piston calipers, and unique 21in wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres.

We will come to how those changes influence the DS 7’s behaviour on the road, but it’s clear they transform the car’s look, the more confident stance almost turning this slightly plain SUV into a chunky hot hatch.

At 4595mm, the DS 7 is slightly longer than the BMW X1 and Audi Q3, but quite a bit smaller than the BMW X3 and Audi Q5. Unlike the Chinese-built DS 9, the DS 7 is made in Mulhouse, France.

On anything other than a perfect surface, the ride is busy and crashy, and we had several wince-inducing moments that made us fear the worst for those big wheels. The lack of tyre sidewall is absolutely a factor, but DS has had its camera-assisted Active Scan suspension for several years now, and you would hope that by now it would have been refined to be a bit better at dealing with poor road surfaces.

You can feel it working when you switch from Hybrid to Comfort mode, because after a short delay where the system reads the road, the body is kept noticeably more level over certain bumpy roads. Even then, it is nothing revolutionary, and the experience is still punctuated by impacts from ruts and potholes.

On the plus side, at motorway speeds, the DS 7’s cabin is very slightly less noisy than the BMW X1’s or Audi SQ5 Sportback’s. The seats are comfortable as well, giving you an elevated driving position and keeping your legs and lower back well supported. That said, given the performance potential and lateral grip of the 360 version, they do lack lateral support.

Assisted Driving notes

The full ‘DS Drive Assist’ suite is standard only in Opera and Esprit de Voyage models but can be added as a separate option even on Performance Line, the lowest trim level. It brings adaptive cruise control with lane following, a 360deg camera and a more advanced driver monitoring system on top of the standard AEB, blindspot monitoring, traffic sign recognition and driver attention alert.

Apart from the lane keeping assistance, which is far too intrusive, the assisted driving features are fairly well tuned. The cruise control is generally smooth and perceptive, while the lane following is good at negotiating motorway bends and gets the message when you manually nudge it left or right. We had no false positives from the collision avoidance, and the driver monitoring isn’t needlessly strict either. The blindspot monitoring could do with an audible alert, and there should be an option to switch to standard cruise control.

All versions of the DS 7 E-Tense fall short of the 40 miles of electric range required for the 8% company car tax band, incurring 12% instead. The silver lining is that there is no penalty in that respect for choosing the most powerful version. The 360 is supposed to have a 36-mile range, and we managed 29 miles on a mixed route. As the battery has 12.9kWh of usable capacity, that translates to an efficiency of around 2.25 miles per kWh.