Peugeot Partner facelift announced, including new E-Expert electric variant
Peugeot’s facelifted Partner small van has gone on sale in Australia, with updated styling to align it with the rest of the Peugeot showroom and a smattering of extra equipment to sharpen its offering – and help justify moderate price rises.
The price of entry to the Partner range has risen by $7,000 to $39,990 (before on-road costs), partly as a result of the deletion of a manual-equipped base model and the retirement of the previous base City grade. Going forward, the Partner range will be exclusively auto-only, with power provided by a 96kW, 230Nm 1.2L turbo petrol inline three, paired to a conventional eight-speed automatic and driving the front wheels.
But while a manual option has been subtracted, there have been plenty of additions elsewhere. For the 2025 model year, the Partner gains a 10” digital dash, a 10” infotainment panel, wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, an electronic rearview mirror, a reversing camera, automatic high-beam, rain-sensing wipers, two more USB charge points, blind spot monitoring and front parking sensors (rear sensors were already standard on the pre-update model). That’s on top of the cosmetic refresh to the front end, and a new low-profile gear selector with steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters. The top-spec Partner Premium also adds LED headlights to the list of new equipment for 2025.
A three-across seating configuration is standard across the range, with heavy-duty cloth trim, insulated under-seat storage, and a fold-down worktable in the centre position. As for its load-carrying credentials, the Partner comes in two different lengths, with short-wheelbase versions offering 3.3m³ of internal cargo volume and a maximum payload of 896kg, while the long-wheelbase stretches to 3.9m³ and 998kg. Towing capacities top out at 900kg for the SWB and 950kg for the LWB, a side-effect of the Partner’s small car-based platform, but the flipside is a very carlike degree of manoeuvrability, with a turning circle of 10.8m for the SWB and 11.4m for the LWB.
Pricing opens at $39,990 for the base Partner Pro SWB, rising to $42,990 for the Partner Pro LWB. Add $3,000 to those prices to step up to the Partner Premium grade, which adds the aforementioned LED headlamps as well as dual-zone climate control, body-coloured exterior plastics, and alloy wheels.
With the subtraction of the City grade all Partner variants now feature autonomous emergency braking as standard, which, combined with the new blind-spot monitoring system and the already-standard lane departure warning, lane keep assist, stability control, driver fatigue warning and speed limit recognition systems, makes for an extensive safety fit-out for Peugeot’s compact box van.