Tag Archives: DS N°8

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750 km On a Single Charge: DS N°8 Redefines the Art of Travel

There’s something inherently romantic about the French approach to travel. Not the sort that involves cramped budget flights or motorway service sandwiches, but the elegant, unhurried sort — the Art of Travel, as DS Automobiles likes to call it. And with the new DS N°8, the brand wants to prove that range anxiety can finally be filed under “obsolete technology,” right next to dial-up modems and diesel hatchbacks.

So, what happens when you point an electric luxury saloon from Paris towards the Atlantic coast — and deliberately avoid the autoroutes? You get a journey that sounds like a postcard and reads like a manifesto.

Two DS N°8 Étoile FWD Long Range prototypes set off from Vélizy, home of the DS Design Studio, bound for Biscarrosse — a charming seaside town known for its pine forests and lakes. The catch? They weren’t allowed to plug in along the way. No DC chargers, no coffee-stop top-ups. Just 750 kilometres of real French countryside, national roads, and small-town roundabouts.

And when they arrived? Each car still had over 50 kilometres of range left in the tank — or rather, in the 97.2 kWh battery, built by Automotive Cells Company in Billy-Berclau. That’s a total theoretical range of 800 kilometres.

Let that sink in. Eight hundred kilometres. From an electric car.

Real Roads, Real Results

This wasn’t a cherry-picked lab test at 23°C and feather-light throttle inputs. The DS team drove through Beauce and Sologne, skirted Poitiers and Angoulême, then brushed past Bordeaux before finally rolling into Les Landes. The weather swung from a crisp 12°C morning to a mild 19°C afternoon, and the average speed was a distinctly human 54 km/h — traffic lights, tractors, and all.

Despite those less-than-ideal conditions, the DS N°8 averaged just 11.7 kWh/100 km, outclassing even its own WLTP rating of 12.9. It’s the kind of number that’d make a Tesla engineer raise an eyebrow and an Audi exec quietly weep into his spreadsheets.

The French Touch

The magic lies in the numbers — and the nationalism. The battery is French. The electric motor, built in Trémery. The design, of course, conceived in Paris. Together, they form a technological ecosystem that DS hopes will re-establish French engineering as a world benchmark. The 97.2 kWh pack’s energy density of 264 Wh/kg puts it right among the elite of the EV world — without the exotic price tag or Silicon Valley smugness.

And while the tech is serious, the experience remains distinctly DS: poised, refined, and quietly charismatic. With a drag coefficient of 0.24, the N°8 slices through the air with aerodynamic grace, while the interior promises the kind of hushed, jewel-like atmosphere you’d expect from a Parisian atelier.

A Game-Changer, or Just a Gentle Revolution?

DS CEO Xavier Peugeot puts it bluntly: “It’s no longer the battery that requires you to stop for charging.” It’s a bold statement — one that turns the EV narrative on its head. The DS N°8 doesn’t want to be a car you plan trips around; it wants to be a car you just drive.

In the real world, that means cross-country jaunts without range planning spreadsheets, spontaneous detours without the dreaded “Battery Low” warning, and maybe — just maybe — the rebirth of the grand European road trip, this time with zero tailpipe guilt.

So yes, the DS N°8 is more than just another electric saloon. It’s a rolling argument that luxury in the EV era isn’t about acceleration figures or touchscreen acreage — it’s about freedom. And in that sense, this French contender might just be the most liberté, égalité, mobilité car on sale.

Source: Stellantis

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Haute Couture on Wheels: DS N°8 Struts Through Paris Fashion Week

Paris, late September. The streets are clogged with blacked-out SUVs, photographers are swarming outside venues, and someone in a hat that costs more than your car is shouting into a phone. But this year, amid the chaos of Paris Fashion Week, there’s a new star stealing the limelight. Forget the catwalk. The DS N°8 has arrived – and it’s wearing the Paris Fashion Week logo like a designer label stitched across its electric haunches.

DS Automobiles, a brand that’s never been shy about blending French flair with tech-laden wizardry, has been a partner of Paris Fashion Week since 2019. Now it’s doubling down, rolling out a 20-strong fleet of its flagship DS N°8 to ferry fashion’s finest from show to show. Think of it less as a chauffeur car, more as a rolling VIP lounge – with watchstrap-stitched leather seats instead of velvet ropes.

Electric Catwalk

Naturally, these aren’t your average taxis. Every DS N°8 in this fleet is fully electric, with the option of two- or four-wheel drive. Whisper-quiet progress through the cobbled streets of the Marais? Check. Enough torque to outrun a paparazzo scooter? Absolutely. It’s the kind of transport where Anna Wintour can glide between venues in serene silence while the rest of Paris clatters along in a traffic jam.

Details, Darling, Details

Inside, DS has leaned heavily into its obsession with craftsmanship. Pearl stitching on the seats, Clous de Paris guilloché metal trim on the dashboard, and upholstery finished like a luxury watch strap. It’s all very “atelier” – because why stop at tailoring your suit when your car can match it stitch for stitch? This is automotive design that borrows more from haute couture than it does from engineering textbooks.

Theatrics With a Steering Wheel

DS CEO Xavier Peugeot calls the partnership a celebration of “creativity, design and avant-garde.” And you can see why. The DS N°8 isn’t trying to be a German limo with better PR. It’s doing something more French: treating driving as theatre. At Paris Fashion Week, the car becomes part of the spectacle – a mobile runway, a statement of taste, an accessory.

So, what’s the verdict? Is the DS N°8 a fashion accessory on wheels, or a proper car you’d actually want to drive? Well, both. On the one hand, it’s dripping with finery, the sort of machine that feels more at home parked outside a Louis Vuitton show than a supermarket. But on the other, it’s a serious EV, packed with tech, comfortable enough to cross Europe, and distinctive enough to stand out in a sea of identikit SUVs.

In short: if Paris Fashion Week is all about who’s wearing what, then DS just made sure the answer to “who’s driving what” is equally stylish.

Source: Stellantis

News

2026 DS N°8 Présidentiel

At the end of 2024, DS Automobiles launched the DS N°8, which has now become the official car of the President of France. It is a special model DS N°8 Présidentiel, the first all-electric presidential car.

DS has not released technical details, but it is known that the range is 750 kilometers. This indicates that the car is based on the DS N°8 FWD version, which is powered by a single electric motor with 230 hp and 245 hp. It is equipped with a 97.2 kWh battery that, thanks to a fast charger up to 200 kW DC, can be charged from 20 to 80 percent in 27 minutes.

The car is finished in Sapphire Blue with black details. It is equipped with a DS Luminascreen grille illuminated in the colors of the French flag (blue, white and red) which are also present on special badges, while the front bumper contains flagpoles. A soft-folding roof emphasizes the parade status of the model.

The interior is also blue, covered with a combination of Dream Blue Alcantara and Nappa leather. Heated/cooled seats with massage and door heating functions are designed to be comfortable, while in front of the driver there is a digital instrument panel and a 16-inch central screen for the multimedia system. Hidden under the center console are the controls for activating the signals.

DS N°8 is 4.82 meters long, 1.90 meters wide and 1.58 meters high, with a wheelbase of 2.90 meters, which means that it is 12 cm shorter than the DS 9 model but also longer than the fastback crossovers Peugeot 408 and Citroen C5 X.

Source: DS Automobiles

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2026 DS N°8 Présidentiel