Recently we had the unfortunate situation of our Citroen eSpacetourer (while parked up) having a coming together with another vehicle. A learner driver misjudged the space they had, and well, both cars came away in a state they could be driven, but both needed professional repairs. No one was injured, and insurance was there to look after these unfortunate incidents. As such, it led to giving us a very interesting and timely comparison of our daily 9-seater electric van with a 9-seater diesel van while ours was being fixed.

Now as I said, this is both interesting and timely. Interesting in so far as, because we were the third party we had to be provided with an as equivalent vehicle to what we have, and at the time of writing on the 15th of March 2025, SEAI have released their Q2 2025 Fuel Price Comparison poster for a C-segment vehicle.

Which a Citroen eSpacetourer is not! This is one of the largest and thirstiest passenger vehicles on the road, so a direct Diesel equivalent is a great place to see how these vehicles compare. So to start with, how does our Citroen eSpacetourer physically compare to the Ford Tourneo Custom we had while our vehicle was being repaired? Well, let's start with the vehicle size. And before you start, the photo doesn’t do the two vehicles justice. Remember, small, far away!

Directly beyond that, both vehicles are automatic, both make about the same power, with the Citroen being slightly more powerful in this version to the Ford with 100kW vs 96kW, but down on torque at 260Nm vs the Ford's 385Nm. Both felt reasonably the same to get going, but the Ford definitely protested to a large stab of the throttle with a lot of raucous noise. It wasn't a slouch, but it really was a surprise to have so much noise when trying to accelerate in a more exuberant (i.e. normal) fashion. As a formal petrol-head, under no circumstances is a four-cylinder car or van worth saving. This has just re-iterated this view. And while the kids were super excited to have a 'new' car for a few days, by the end they wanted ours back. The (lack of) noise, smoothness and comfort of our Citroen was something they wanted back. Diesel idle was so noticeable to the silent stops in electric, the kids just wanted our comfort back!

So in real-world use, the Ford was slower going as it just wasn't nice to get it moving, and thus felt slower due to the additional weight it was carrying around. But beyond that, as a vehicle it was good except for the tyres it was on. Standard van tyres are nowhere near as good as the All-season Goodyear Vector4Seasons Gen3 we run, as the first proper corner and a tonne of understeer showed me within minutes of collecting the van....

Now before we get to the interesting bit on fuel, lets round out the comparison with vehicle costs. Our Citroen is the Business spec, the top trim in Ireland in XL length at the time of purchase, and on-the-road price when bought new in July of 2022 was €51,100. Moving to similar in the Ford is not as pleasing on the list prices on initial look. For a LWB model, in automatic, the Diesel Ford model is listed at €74,580, the equivalent diesel from Citroen is €69,680. Now, there is a reprieve if you go Electric, as the LWB Ford Electric model is listed at €59,048. And coming back to the new Citroen eSpacetourer, the XL model in Business trim is now the mid-spec, and in 75kWh battery is €61,990. So current pricing is on-par, but when we bought nearly three years ago the smaller battery size was all we got, and this is only found in Combi trim now at €48,626 for the 50kWh battery. So choices can be made as to what you need at a price point that works. But the key point is that diesel is more expensive in these vehicles up-front! That's a huge win for electric!!

The good stuff

Ok, ok, let's get the bit why you are here. We had the Ford Tourneo Custom for a few days, covering 508.2kms. So, that's what we are going to compare against the Citroen on both home charging and public only charging, as well as the blended charging of 90% at home, 10% on the public network as the SEAI Fuel Price Comparison poster shows. This is to break it down based on the real costs I got as below, as well as what is found on the SEAI FPC poster for costs.

Firstly, to real costs. Our Citroen averages under 30kWh/100km, but for simplicity I'm going to take this figure, as it can be above this in the worst of winter, and down to 25kWh/100km in the summer time. It's currently sitting around 29.2kWh/100kms the past few months. For the Ford, I had two refueling stops, and the same sort of mixture of motorway, main road and city driving. The first stop in the Ford was for 16.49 litres, at a cost of €30. This one was frustrating, as I had to leave the house to refuel, something I haven't had to do in years. The second stop was 33.19 litres for a cost of €60 at a motorway services station at Birdhill, one with a number of DC HPCP, but I will give the speed of refueling to the diesel here, it was a much faster stop. But I did stop on the motorway like I would in my Citroen, albeit not normally at Birdhill. For the 508kms of driving covered, the Ford averaged 9.775l/100kms.

EV-database.org lists the Citroen as an average of 25.7kWh/100km, Ford's brochure lists the Tourneo Custom as Highest performing figure of 8.9l/100km. Both my consumption figures are above this, i.e. the real-world! So with that, this is how the fuel costs compare for the electric and diesel scenarios as below based on what I use/have.

So what can we conclude from this? Well, in the large passenger space (9-seater transport) the list price of Electric vs Diesel, it is cheaper for both the Citroen and Ford in electric vs diesel as being looked at here. Other brands & models could be cheaper for diesel vs electric, but not here. And with the fuel table as shown above in real-world use, even on 100% public charging (and not even a subscription model might I add!!) the fuel costs are at worst equal, at best a quarter of the price (or an eight the price if you have one of those nice Night Boost 2-3 hour windows). And to be clear, I’m using ESB ecars as they about the mid-point for pricing, some are cheaper, some are more expensive. But this is a comparison, so that’s what I’m using.

Bringing in the lower maintenance costs of Electric and it really becomes a no-brainer to go electric, on costs alone. Our van covers 500kms a week, every week of the year. Taking the SEAI Blended charging costs, this brings the total yearly fuel cost for electric to be €1,614.60, and for the diesel van the equivalent yearly fuel cost is €4,678.96. A whopping €3k more per year, just in fuel. If the Electric versions were €10k more you could argue that total cost of ownership comes back after 3 years on PCP to make them equal, but they are already cheaper by €15k in the Ford, and €7k in the Citroen for the electric models.

Even if you want to ignore the environmental aspect of an electric vehicle, the costs of electric are starting to win hands-down across the board. A fuel bill of €1600 a year is fairly phenomenal in any vehicle, even more so in a two ton, 9-seater inefficient passenger van covering 30,000kms a year! Stop listening to those who have never driven or who don't want to drive electric. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, just don't let it be for you!