The best 7-seat electric cars on sale – for families, for stuff and for value

There’s an increasing amount of choice on the market now when it comes to getting a seven-seat electric car – it feels like only yesterday when there were barely any options to choose from, but carmakers have really stepped it up in the last year or two. (If you want to check out our list of every 7-seat electric car on sale, click here)

But we all have different reasons for wanting seven seats – you might just need the occasional +2 seats in the back for family trips or playdates, or you could be a minicab driver looking for the maximum amount of space to taxi the maximum number of people in. 

Whether you need the boot space or you’re on a budget, we’ve handpicked a selection of the best 7-seat electric cars you can buy right now. 

The best budget 7-seat electric car – Citroen e-Berlingo XL

Price: From £32,140 / Range: 206 miles / Battery: 50kWh (usable)

The best budget seven seater on sale at the moment is the Citroen e-Berlingo XL. It offers a decent blend of space and utility, and while the range isn’t particularly impressive it’s a great option for ferrying children and shopping about town. The Berlingo is currently in its third generation, and its USP is that it’s based on a van. It’s great if you need something with more space than a car but you don’t like the aggressive stylings of an SUV. It’s still a little bit rough around the edges with those van roots, admittedly, but if that’s how Citroen can keep the price down we don’t mind too much. 

The XL adds a bit of length to the standard car and two extra seats in the boot on top of the usual five. Those two in the back are easily removable if you need the luggage/house moving space. There are some nice little touches that make best use of the van profile – like the optional airplane-style luggage rack that runs the length of the cabin. We’d probably go for the £720 heat pump to add efficiency in cold weather. And if you don’t like the look of the Citroen, the nice thing is that Vauxhall, Peugeot and Toyota all have versions of the same car thanks to the magic of cost saving. 

Rear seats in the seven-seat e-Berlingo XL are just as comfortable, but hide away less neatly than the middle row

The best AWD 7-seat electric SUV – Kia EV9

Price: £66,035 / Range: 349 miles / Weight: 2,625kg

The four-wheel-drive Kia EV9 will handle anything you throw at it (unless you’re throwing bricks or something, we wouldn’t recommend that) – it’s certainly not a mud-plugging Land Rover alternative, but there’s enough traction and off-roading ability to give you the reassurance you need when you’ve got important passengers in the back. The EV9 is a fascinating car – you’d think a company like Kia with its budget pedigree wouldn’t be able to make a success of a car like this, but it’s a mark of how far the brand has come in recent years (and Hyundai too with the Ioniq 9). 

There are loads of screens and fancy tech is available – you can get it with a digital key on your phone and fingerprint recognition inside, plus there’s a heat pump as standard and V2L tech too. All models get a 96kWh usable battery and it’ll charge at up to 210kW, which means 10–80% in 24 minutes. It’s also rated for towing up to 2,500kg, which is very impressive. The massively more expensive Volvo EX90 has the same rating, and the Hyundai Ioniq 9 (same car as the EV9 with different styling – Hyundai and Kia are part of the same group) does too, but we think that the EV9 has a fraction more charm. 

Read the review, or watch the video below

The 7-seat electric car with the biggest boot – Citroen e-Spacetourer

Price: From £35,495 / Range: 215 miles / Boot space: From 700 litres

The Citroen e-Spacetourer does give off real minibus vibes, and for sure it would be a great choice for a private hire driver who wanted to offer their wares as a plus-sized taxi – what says ‘summer holiday airport run’ better than this? But the big Citroen is also a seven-seater EV (up to nine in the right specs) with a boot big enough for real family life. 

You’ve got 700–900 litres of boot space available even with the three rows of seats in place. Take out the middle row and that jumps up to around 2,300 litres, get rid of all the seats and you’ve taken the e-Spacetourer right back to its van roots, with up to 4,554 litres of space available in the back. You’ll be in hot demand for any friends who are moving house. Could the range be a bit better? Sure, 215 miles is a little on the short side, especially once you factor in real world conditions, but for this sort of money you could do a lot worse. 

Lots of space even for fully grown adults in the back of the e-Spacetourer

The best family 7-seat electric car – Peugeot e-5008

Price: £48,560 / Range: 414 miles / Max charge: 160kW

School runs, holidays, chaos – we think this is the best seven-seat EV for families. The perkier pricing might bring a little something to your eye, but when you consider what you’re getting for your money we think the Peugeot e-5008 is fairly good value for a family friendly SUV. And compare it with the price of the Hyundai Ioniq 9 or Kia EV9 – and those two brands were bargain basement 20 years ago. The e-5008 looks stylish and there’s loads of space inside too, particularly in the cavernous boot. That’s a decently swanky interior that comes with the car, too – the swoopy dash and the sharp lines of the centre console? Très élégant. 

This chic French car comes with 73kWh or 98kWh battery options – the latter in the Long Range model that’s good for a WLTP rating of 414 miles. Even if you don’t quite match that in real world driving, a figure in the high 300s is mighty respectable. If you were driving with seven people in the car you’d all be dying for a stop by that point anyway… at which point the Peugeot will charge from 10–80% in 32 minutes. 

Read the review or watch the video below to find out how Nicki enjoyed living with the e-5008

The best long-range 7-seat electric car – Hyundai Ioniq 9

Price: £64,995 / Range: 385 miles / Max charge: 250kW

If you’re hitting the road, then the Hyundai Ioniq 9 in long range, rear-wheel-drive guise is the seven-seat electric car that really goes the distance. We do feel like we have some explaining to do, though. It’s a bit more expensive than the Kia EV9, but a lot cheaper than the Volvo EX90 that we were thinking about. It goes a bit further than both, but it does fall short of the Peugeot e-5008’s range. The 106kWh battery is also chunkier than the one in the Peugeot, so you can do the maths at how much less efficient the Hyundai is (it’s over 200kg heavier, which can’t help), but it juices up a lot faster and will get from 10%–80% battery charge in 24 minutes on a suitably powerful charger. 

Then it comes down to some practical numbers – there’s a heat pump as standard in both the Hyundai and Peugeot, but the Ioniq 9 gets four Isofix seats versus three in the e-5008. In this RWD form it’ll tow 1,600kg versus the equivalent EV9’s 900kg – you’ve got to go AWD to get the full 2,500kg, but it’s an extra eight grand to go for the AWD option here, and you lose a chunk of range in the process (well, 12 miles, but it all adds up). We think the Ioniq 9 Long Range RWD is the all-round sweet spot and there’s no car out of all the seven-seat EVs on sale right now that we’d rather be road tripping in than this comfy beast. 

Read the review or watch the video below