Comfort king of the middle class

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At the beginning of the six-month endurance test, “Citroën is playing with the big boys again!” We had the headline. And indeed: with the C5 X available since the fall of 2022, Citroën has finally had a true flagship re-introduced after a long dry period, and it can score points outside of the increasingly popular SUVs. There’s plenty of room for families taller than 4.80m, plus a sleek, backward-sloping roofline and diagonal elements for style-conscious customers.

Unique to Citroën, the eye-catching touring car is designed purely for comfort and therefore follows in the footsteps of the legendary goddess DS, who once set the standards in suspension with her hydropneumatics. Citroën has fitted the C5 X with adaptive, electrically controlled shock absorbers designed to be softer or harder depending on the driving mode, promising a driving experience like on a floating carpet.

Couldn’t be more comfortable

In fact, we feel a bit Aladdin-like feeling as we float on cotton along the country road where even the tall mounds are literally spellbound – a feeling like in the tale of 1001 Nights. But the ultra-comfortable chassis also exposes weaknesses: the C5 X wobbles and wobbles and wobbles and wobbles in fast and tight corners when braking hard or accelerating – it’s neither too sensitive nor sporty and not for the squeamish occupant.

But what suits the wing’s fluidity best is the plug-in hybrid drive, which combines the 180-hp four-cylinder petrol engine we tested with the electric motor. If both machines dock together, a system output of 225 hp is achieved, providing fast starts at traffic lights and plenty of torque on the highway. It is really comfortable in electric mode, where we get out of the busy daily driving life almost silently and at speeds of up to 135 km/h.

Utopian factory consumption

The electric slack doesn’t last long, however: Citroën promises an all-electric range of up to 55 kilometers, while we can hardly manage more than 30 on most routes – clearly not enough for us. On the one hand, we hardly keep up with charging the 11.5 kWh battery – even on long trips, we have to do it completely uncharged due to the maximum possible 7.4 kW, if we do not want to wait almost two hours for the battery to run out. always be full

By contrast, the short range means that the extremely low standard consumption of 1.6 liters of petrol plus electricity per 100 kilometers, which is extremely low on paper, has become a pure illusion. In the test, we averaged 5.9 l/100 km in the first 10,000 kilometers. Not bad for a 1.8-tonne family station wagon, but also almost four times the admittedly single theoretical factory spec. After all, Citroën has promised improvements and promises new customers of the C5 X, thanks to a revised energy management system, now up to 63 electric kilometers. This should enable significantly lower consumption afterwards.

We’re excited to see what the extravagant but inexpensive wing (the Swiss Edition from CHF 48,190) will surprise us with in the final phase of our six-month long-term test. One thing we already know: the king of comfort in the middle class will always be comfortable.

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Source: Blick