When coping with plug-in hybrids just like the DS 7 360, it’s not possible to easily describe ‘the efficiency’, as a result of it might fluctuate fairly significantly – each in amount and in nature – relying on the scenario, driving mode and state of cost.

Within the best-case situation, with a full cost and with engine and motors becoming a member of forces, the DS 7 360 feels all of its 355bhp, stepping off the road maybe a contact reluctantly however constructing drive and pushing you again firmly in your seat thereafter. It stopped simply wanting matching the quoted 0-62mph time of 5.6sec, however 6.0sec remains to be pretty fast.

In most conditions on the street, nevertheless, the pleasure from having a strong engine in a luxurious SUV comes not essentially from setting the quickest 0-62mph instances however from having energy in reserve to speed up briskly however effortlessly. And that’s the place PHEVs, and the DS 7 particularly, can fall brief.

With a complete of 218bhp of electrical energy, you may assume that’s what the software program would depend on within the first occasion to offer clean, silent progress. Nevertheless, if you demand something greater than leisurely acceleration, the engine is all too eager to pipe up when in Consolation or Hybrid mode.

Counterintuitively, if you would like that muscular mid-range shove with a minimal of drama, you might be higher served with Sport mode. Nevertheless, that comes with the firmer suspension setting, and if you do rouse the engine it would grasp on to excessive revs for too lengthy.

You may assume that taking management your self utilizing the shift paddles can be a manner across the software program’s unusual shift technique. However because it’s not potential to lock the gearbox in a handbook mode, the automotive will rapidly take again management and upshift or downshift if you don’t need it to. This additionally prevented us from getting our ordinary in-gear acceleration figures.

You possibly can drive across the powertrain’s foibles, but it surely shouldn’t be this tough to discover a satisfying wave of torque to surf on. Equally, the 1.6-litre turbo will not be precisely thrilling to rev out, sounding principally muted however unwilling when pushed.

We sit up for DS’s future electrical efforts, as a result of the DS 7 is arguably at its most stress-free in electrical mode due to quiet progress and linear accelerator response. With a 0-60mph time of 10.4sec below electric-only energy, it simply loses any semblance of being a efficiency automotive.

In addition to extra energy, the DS 7 360 will get larger entrance brakes as a part of its efficiency makeover. The 45.0m stopping distance from 70mph is only one.5m shorter than what we recorded within the DS 7 Crossback Puretech 225 in 2018. However, that’s nonetheless a powerful consequence and higher than the Audi SQ5 Sportback. Pedal really feel is commonly a weak point of Stellantis automobiles and whereas the DS 7’s pedal is softer than can be superb, it’s at the least simple sufficient to modulate to permit for clean stops.