Running costs

Peugeot e-208 vs 208: what each really costs a year

By Andrea PerizzatoPublished 23 September 2026

The short answer

At list price the petrol 208 is cheaper to run, by about £2,300 a year at 8,000 miles. The e-208 saves £940 on fuel and £445 on tax, but a £24,995 car keeping 36% of its value loses £3,200 a year more than a £22,545 one keeping 72%. Bought at the £7,300 dealer discount, it comes out ahead.

Residual value: what a car is expected to be worth after three years, as a percentage of its list price. It is the number that decides this comparison, because the e-208 is forecast to keep 36% and the petrol 208 about 72%.

What does the fuel or electricity cost?

About £160 a year for the e-208 charged overnight and £1,101 of petrol for the 1.2 Turbo, so the electric one saves about £940 a year at 8,000 miles.

The electric car wins this line, and not by a little. Parkers puts the e-208 at 3.5 to 4.5 miles per kWh, and Auto Express got 4.3 on its June 2026 test, so I've used 4.0, which is 2,000kWh for 8,000 miles. On Intelligent Octopus Go at 8p a kWh that's £160 a year; on the October 2026 price cap of 26.32p it's £526. The petrol 208's 1.2 Turbo 100 does 56.8mpg on the official test, according to Carwow, which is 640 litres a year, and at 172p a litre, the UK average in the week ending 21 September 2026, that's £1,101.

So the gap is £940 a year with a driveway and an EV tariff, and £575 without the tariff. Without a driveway at all, public charging at 54p to 77p a kWh puts the e-208 at £1,080 to £1,540 a year, which is petrol money or worse, and the no-driveway guide is the one you want before this one.

Chart: What a year costs at 8,000 miles: Peugeot 208 1.2 Turbo against the e-208, line by line

What are the tax, insurance and servicing lines?

Tax favours the e-208 by £445 in year one and is level at £200 after that, servicing is about the same on Peugeot's plans, and insurance goes the other way because the e-208 sits six to eleven groups higher.

Vehicle tax first. A new e-208 pays £10 in its first year and £200 a year from the second, on the GOV.UK rates for 2026/27. The petrol 1.2 Turbo 100 emits 117 to 126g/km on Parkers' specification sheet, which puts it in the 111 to 130 band at £455 for year one, then the same £200. Neither car gets anywhere near the expensive-car supplement, so that's a £445 saving once and then nothing. The road tax guide has the whole table.

Servicing is closer than you'd think. Peugeot's service plans start at £199, and Parkers reports plans from around £10 a month over three years for the 208, so I've used £120 a year for both cars. The e-208 visits the garage less often, 8,000 miles for the first service and then every 16,000 miles or two years, so if anything its line is lower, but Peugeot doesn't publish a separate electric price on a page I could check.

Insurance is the line to get a quote on. Parkers puts the petrol Allure 1.2 100 in group 19 to 21 and the e-208 in group 26 to 32 depending on trim. MoneySuperMarket's median for a 208 was £392 a year between August 2025 and July 2026, and I've used that for both because nobody publishes an e-208 average. Six or more groups usually means a dearer quote, so treat the e-208's line as a floor.

What a year costs at 8,000 miles for a Peugeot 208 Allure 1.2 Turbo 100 (£22,545) and an e-208 Allure 50kWh (£24,995), both bought at list price.

Line	208 1.2 Turbo 100	e-208 50kWh
Fuel or electricity (56.8mpg at 172p; 4.0 miles per kWh at 8p overnight)	£1,101	£160
Vehicle tax, year one	£455	£10
Vehicle tax, standard rate from year two	£200	£200
Insurance (208 median, 2025/26; group 19 to 21 vs 26 to 32)	£392	£392 or more
Servicing (Peugeot plan, about £10 a month)	£120	£120
Value lost per year over three years (28% vs 64% of list)	£2,104	£5,330
Total, years two onwards	£3,920	£6,200
Total if the e-208 is bought at £17,700	£3,920	£3,770

Prices and specifications from Carwow, September 2026; efficiency from Parkers and Auto Express; mpg from Carwow; tax from GOV.UK with CO2 from Parkers; insurance groups from Parkers and the premium from MoneySuperMarket's 2025/26 median, used for both cars; servicing from Peugeot's plan prices via Stellantis &You and Parkers; e-208 depreciation from Auto Express's forecast, petrol from The Money Calculator's estimate. The insurance, servicing and depreciation lines are estimates. Last checked 23 September 2026.

Example figures

Which one loses more value?

The e-208, by a long way at list price: Auto Express expects it to keep about 36% of £24,995 after three years, against 72% for the petrol on The Money Calculator's estimate, which is £3,200 a year more lost.

This is the line that turns the sum. Auto Express's June 2026 review says the e-208 is expected to keep around 36% of its value after three years or 36,000 miles. On the £24,995 Allure that's £16,000 gone in three years, or £5,330 a year. The petrol 208 has no published forecast I could fetch; The Money Calculator's model estimates 28% lost in three years, so the £22,545 petrol Allure loses £6,310, or £2,104 a year.

Now the part the forecast leaves out. Carwow listed the e-208 with an average saving of £7,269 off list and cash prices from £17,447 on 11 September 2026. A car bought at £17,700 and worth £9,000 in three years has lost £2,900 a year, not £5,330, and the whole table below moves by £2,400. The forecast is right about the car and wrong about what you paid, because depreciation is from your price, not Peugeot's.

What would it cost me?Your car vs an EV, line by lineWork it out

So which is cheaper to run?

At list price the petrol 208 by about £2,300 a year; at the discounted price dealers are actually selling the e-208 for, the electric one comes out about £150 a year ahead.

Add it up at 8,000 miles, both bought at list. The e-208 Allure: £160 electricity, £200 tax, £392 insurance, £120 servicing and £5,330 lost value, about £6,200 a year. The petrol Allure: £1,101 fuel, £200 tax, £392 insurance, £120 servicing and £2,104 lost value, about £3,920. The petrol wins by £2,300, and nearly all of it is depreciation on a car that costs £2,450 more and holds half as much of it.

Buy the e-208 at £17,700 instead and its lost value drops to about £2,900 a year, so the total is about £3,770 against the petrol's £3,920 at list. Carwow shows the petrol discounted too, by £5,548 on average, so with both cars bought at the going rate call it level, with the fuel saving paying you back a little more each year you keep it. The whole running-cost page shows the same shape for a typical EV: cheap electricity, dear depreciation, and the answer decided by the price you paid and where you charge.

Who should pick which?

The e-208 suits someone with a driveway, an EV tariff and either a discount or a lease; the petrol suits someone paying near list, parking on the street, or keeping the car for a decade.

Driveway, EV tariff, discount or lease. The e-208. You bank £940 a year on fuel, the depreciation is the leasing company's problem on a lease, and at £7,000 off it's level or better on the sums.
Paying list, or near it. The petrol, unless you keep the car long enough for the fuel saving to catch the depreciation, which is about seven years.
No driveway. The petrol, or read the public charging sums first. At 54p a kWh the e-208's electricity costs what the petrol 208's fuel does.
Buying used. The e-208 becomes the bargain. A three-year-old e-208 at 36% of list is a £9,000 car that costs £160 a year to run, and the used EV guide does that sum.
Either way, get the insurance quote on the exact trim before the test drive. It's the one line I couldn't pin down for the electric car, and a six-group gap is real money. The Corsa comparison tells the same story with a bigger price gap.