It’s a shame Citroën didn’t extend the C4’s wheelbase at least a little for this car but perhaps that would have been more than the platform allowed. As it is, the ë-C4 X isn’t really any more spacious than the regular hatchback and, according to our measurements, offers less second-row occupant space than either a Volkswagen ID 3 or an MG 4. For a car sold so squarely on how well it affords on-board comfort, that’s not the greatest start in this section, although passenger comfort is about much more than just room to stretch out in.
With their memory foam construction, the ë-C4 X’s Advanced Comfort seats come with quite the billing. In our test car’s case, they also came with fairly lavish part-leather upholstery and, in the front, an electronic massage function – neither of which you might expect in a £35,000 family car. They were certainly soft enough and wide, although a little flat and lacking in lateral bolstering. They omitted to offer an adjustable cushion angle in the front or any cushion extension, which were both slight bugbears for the longer of leg.
Seats and outright space aside, the ë-C4 X offers decent visibility in most directions, especially from the second row. Up front, the car’s B-pillars can seem somewhat obstructive when negotiating T-junctions and roundabouts, but your view forwards and rearwards is clearer.
A slightly over-simplified but very readable digital instrument screen is easily visible through the orbit of a medium-sized steering wheel, with a head-up display relaying a little information more usefully close to your natural line of sight. You can choose exactly which information (trip computer data, motor power/regen, navigation instructions or driver assistance info) that instrument screen contains, but combining elements from different modes is beyond it.
There’s an average but useful amount of cabin storage around and about the driver. Further rearwards, that expanded boot is accessed via a notchback-style bootlid rather than a hatch. It’s a shallower space than the C4 hatchback offers but still quite long and wide and well able to swallow bigger suitcases and storage boxes, although it’s a little sparsely provisioned. (There are no power sockets or retention nets.)
Does it all amount to a particularly comfortable or appealing interior for a mid-sized family car? The cabin’s standard varies from average to respectable to good, depending on what you are judging it on, but for the ë-C4 X’s price, it passes muster.
Multimedia system
Mid- and high-trim versions of the ë-C4 X get the latest MyCitroën Drive Plus infotainment system, which has already been seen on the C5 X. It’s a 10.0in touchscreen system with integrated connected navigation and wireless smartphone connectivity for both Apple and Android devices. Wireless device charging is supposed to be an option on range-topping Shine Plus models only, but our mid-spec car had it anyway.
There are limited physical menu controls for the system, and no cursor controller, but the touchscreen interface is fairly well structured and easy to navigate – and there are separate climate controls.
Voice control works consistently well when entering navigation destinations, and the navigation system plots routes intelligently and with good live traffic information, although we did find the mapping’s ‘north up’ auto zoom settings unhelpful and persistently hard to disable.
