Putting the Peugeot 3008 through its paces

Fuel economy runs have become fairly common for us in the motoring beat. Name every conceivable iteration from city to long-distance, track to off-road; I’ve done it most likely. But that doesn’t stop car manufacturers from using fuel-economy runs to measure the merit of their cars, especially if it’s boasting great levels of frugality. Peugeot, with the 3008, is the latest one to join the fray with an Alabang-Batangas City-and-back fuel economy fun run.

Eurobrands Distributor, Inc. (EDI), the country’s exclusive distributor of Peugeot invited some 20 media participants to drive identical 3008 1.6 e-HDi crossovers on a 158-kilometer drive in normal driving conditions (proper highway speeds, climate control set to 21-degrees Celsius, etc.). Once again, I found myself partnered with fellow STAR writer Angel Rivero and EDI’s Robert Urbano completing our team as official marshal/observer. Drawing car No. 6, we thought being in the middle of the 10-car train would be a problem, but thankfully a two-and-a-half minute interval was allowed between flag-offs. Before we stepped into our 3008, it was decided that I’ll do the driving simply because “gentlemen don’t let ladies drive”—a decision that proved to be a mistake later on).

Being a “Peugeot virgin,” it took me a while to get settled into the 3008, but once I found my preferred seating position and got comfortable, we drove to the Total gas station in Alabang for a top-up in preparation for the run. Though we were eager to tackle this challenge, we figured we’ll take “fuel eco” and “fun run” in equal measure meaning we’ll drive as frugality as possible without sacrificing our sanity.

With an automated manual transmission (as opposed to a traditional automatic or even a dual-clutch manual transmission), it was easy to coax the 3008 to reach the next higher gear quickly. Keeping a light and steady pressure on the accelerator, it made its way to fifth gear with speeds approaching 65 km/h. I manually flicked the paddle shifter to sixth, bringing the 3008’s rev counter to almost 1,100 rpm as the speeds built up to 70, 75, and even 80 km/h. I kept this style of driving constant as the SLEX ended and the STAR Tollway began.

As far as I could tell, Angel and I didn’t take this fuel economy run deadly seriously. We chatted, laughed, gossiped, and even told her to nap while other teams had their game face on. And still, by the end of the route, we managed some 25.3 km/L—truly an amazing feat. Plus, we actually found the time to discuss, debate, and execute a driver change for the drive back to Manila.

And with that, it was Angel’s turn behind the wheel.