► Meet DS’s latest entrant for the premium hatch race
► Plush interior, comfortable ride, new MHEV system
► But is it good enough to sway 1 Series buyers?
DS hasn’t had the best run of luck. The brand has been around since 2014, but it’s still grappling for relevance in a premium market controlled by strong German legacy brands with immensely loyal customer bases.
Sales figures illustrate the scale of the challenge facing DS. Over the last decade, the brand has only managed to sell around 350,000 cars, compared to the two million or so vehicles the likes of BMW and Mercedes can shift annually. Despite such adversity, though, DS isn’t prepared to fold out of the game just yet.
In fact, it’s doubling down. The company recently laid out a fresh statement of intent with the bold No.8 fastback SUV – and it’s now rolling out that car’s design language across the rest of its model range in the hope of luring a few more customers away from the Germans.
The DS No.4 is the first product of this revamped strategy. It’s an updated and rebadged version of the DS 4 hatchback we’ve known since 2021 and, like the pre-facelift car, it’s available with a broader range of powertrains than its competitors that now includes a mild-hybrid petrol, plug-in hybrid, EV and even a diesel.
My question is, does the revised No.4 do enough to encourage premium hatch buyers to step outside of their comfort zones? Or will the pull of the ever-popular Audi A3 and BMW 1 Series prove too strong to resist? Scroll down to find out – and if you’re curious about how I reached my verdict on the No.4, check out our how we test cars explainer page.
At a glance
Pros: MHEVis surprisingly refined, plush front seats, funky (and mad) interior design
Cons: Coarse PHEV system, painfully slow infotainment screen, rear headroom is neat
What’s different?
Just enough. Styling-wise, the No.4 now has the same square nose and fang-shaped daytime running lights as the No.8. DS has also binned off the old car’s chrome trim for some more environmentally friendly gloss black panels – and it’s replaced the loss chintz with a fresh full-width LED light bar.
You get some new badges, too. There’s now a fashionable illuminated one on the front grille and a traditional yet disappointingly cheap ‘DS Automobiles’ one across the tailgate. I could prise the latter badge’s letters off with my thumbnail – and I suspect they’d bounce off the panel like fresh popcorn kernels if you were too vigorous back there with a chamois. That doesn’t exactly scream ‘premium’ to me.
The No.4’s cabin has received some similarly subtle updates. There’s a larger 10.25-inch digital gauge cluster and an updated 10.0-inch infotainment system that houses more of the cabin’s controls. As part of that latter change, DS has ditched its entirely impractical centre-console-mounted trackpad for a similarly useless storage tray that can’t hold anything larger than a credit card. Oddly enough, the wrist wrest for the old screen remains.
Much like the electric model, the No.4’s mechanical changes are far more interesting. There’s an updated version of the old-car’s PHEV system (which now has a larger battery) and a fresh 1.2-litre mild-hybrid system, borrowed from the Alfa Romeo Junior Ibrida and Peugeot 5008. There’s even a diesel on the way in 2026.
What are the specs?
The PHEV is based on the same 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrol engine as the pre-facelift car, but it’s now backed up by a larger 14.6kWh battery pack that boosts electric range by 30%. DS says the 4 can now travel up to 50 miles on electric power alone. Power and torque haven’t changed, mind. You still get 222bhp and 265lb/ft.
I was more intrigued by the mild hybrid unit. It uses Stellantis’s familiar 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol engine as its starting point, to which is bolted a clever new six-speed automatic gearbox with an integrated electric motor. Plus, because that motor is mounted inside the gearbox, it can shunt the car around on its own at low speeds.
DS reckons the motor has enough grunt to run the No.4 on electric power alone for 50% of the time in town. I found that to be a bit optimistic in practice – the 28bhp electric motor doesn’t have quite enough waft, so the petrol engine cuts in often to help it out. Still, at least official emissions figures are low at 116g/km. Power and torque stand at 143bhp and 170lb/ft respectively.
DS hasn’t yet confirmed the specs of the No.4’s diesel engine, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion it’ll be offered with the same 1.5-litre four-cylinder 128bhp BlueHDi unit that’s available in the Peugeot 308 SW. If this unit does come to the UK, you probably shouldn’t buy it unless you spend most of your time on the motorway.
How does it drive?
If I’m honest, it’s a bit hit and miss. It’s more comfortable than its rivals, but I found huge differences in the quality of the two engines currently available to buyers. For that reason, I’m afraid this section is going to read like two miniature reviews. Stick with me, though. I swear it’ll conclude with some useful buying advice.
I’ll start with the PHEV – and I’m afraid the No.4 isn’t out of the block strong. This is easily the worst version of the car, as it’s the least refined, the least comfortable and the most compromised. It also has the smallest boot of the three at 360 litres, compared to the 390 litres of the EV and the 430 litres of the MHEV.
DS (and every other brand under the Stellantis umbrella, for that matter) hasn’t managed to tune the powertrain well enough. The handover from electric to hybrid mode is frustratingly clunky, which isn’t good enough for something that’s supposed to be a premium car.
The engine is coarse, too. It sounds rough on tick over and strangled when you rev it to the redline. It isn’t an especially well-balanced engine, either – a fault that’s amplified by the cast-iron engine mounts DS has used to yoke it to the chassis. At motorway speeds, the vibrations will rattle down the engine block, through the subframe and into the cabin via the transmission tunnel. I genuinely thought my car hadn’t had its driveshafts fitted properly, such was the severity of the vibration sweeping through the interior.
It also isn’t that fast, which is strange for a car with almost as much power as a Volkswagen Golf GTI. The computers simply can’t react quickly enough to smoothly synchronise the power of the electric motor with that of the engine, so they just chop your throttle inputs in half when you shove your foot into the shagpile. The gearbox is equally dim-witted, which means you never really have the confidence to exploit a gap in traffic.
Thankfully, you can fix all these issues by opting for the mild-hybrid petrol. Yes, you sacrifice 90% of the car’s pure-electric capability, but you’re left with a more well-rounded car overall. The biggest surprise for me was this three-cylinder engine – famously, one of the most unbalanced engine configurations available – was quieter and more refined than the four-cylinder engine that forms the basis of the PHEV.
And yes, I’m still trying to figure out how Stellantis has managed to achieve that.
The three-cylinder also sounds a lot better. The PHEV is thrashy and harsh, but the MHEV revs smoothly and emits quite a tuneful thrum. Amusingly, at max throttle it almost sounds like a baby V6. It also feels more muscular than the PHEV in the real world as you don’t need to wait for DS’s treacle-soaked canbus system to figure out how to make two power sources that obviously aren’t on speaking terms collaborate. Just mash and go.
In the PHEV’s defence, it’s a little more comfortable than the MHEV. The big battery adds a little more weight over the rear axle, which helps to keep its backside on the tarmac over fast motorway bumps. But the difference between the two cars is very marginal – and I’d be willing to sacrifice the couple percentage points of ride quality an objectively better engine.
And besides, neither can match the pure-electric No.4 E-Tense for outright ride comfort. The EV model floats down the road like a saloon from the class above – so if ride quality is the most important thing you look for in a quirky French premium hatchback, going green is the answer.
Crucially, though, no version of the DS No.4 drives as well as its German opposition. The Audi A3 and BMW 1 Series are more firmly damped, but neither of those cars are what you’d call uncomfortable – and the slightly superior ride quality of the DS isn’t enough to compensate for its shortcomings elsewhere. Keep scrolling. I’ll elaborate.
What about the interior?
Guess what? The No.4 is hit and miss here, too. Superficially, it’s great. You get loads of expensive-feeling materials (I’m especially fond of the Etoile variant’s suede dashboard), squishy seats and an interesting, quintessentially French design language. But the more you dig, the more problems you find.
I’ll start with the ergonomics. Some of this (such as the mirror adjustment switch above the driver’s knees and the funky trapezoidal air vent controls) can be written off as quirky French charm. But the electric window switches are completely idiotic as you need to rotate your wrist against its usual direction of travel to operate them.
I’m not a huge fan of DS’s infotainment system, either. It’s slow to swap between menu screens, which is annoying because it’s now used to control almost everything on the car. It can also only display one item at a time. So, if you’re getting a little hot and bothered when navigating around an unfamiliar town and you want to turn the air conditioning up, you’ll lose you sat-nav and inevitably take a wrong turn. I much prefer the fixed climate hot bar BMW has baked into its infotainment systems.
DS’s built-in sat-nav is outdated, too. It looks and works like an aftermarket TomTom device from the early 2010s – and it has some very irritating features. The worst is how it homes in on your upcoming junctions, zooming the map down to a molecular level of detail and preventing you from planning your next turn. Again, that’s annoying in an unfamiliar city. Mercifully, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard.
There’s some quality work left to do, too. The No.4 is certainly better built than the equivalent Peugeot 308 and Vauxhall Astra, but it’s nowhere near good enough to compete with the pin-sharp BMW 1 Series. Two of the three cars I drove on the launch event had trim rattles – one due to a loose instrument cowl and one because of a wobbly trim on the passenger door card. DS’s coffee-coloured leather dashboard is also very easy to scratch, which is a shame considering how expensive the trim package makes the rest of the cabin look.
To cap it all off, space in the rear is only average for the class. It’s broadly the same as its Stellantis stablemates, albeit with a bit less headroom due to its rakish roofline. You need also to watch out for the No.4’s C-pillars – they’re very broad, surprisingly low and well ahead of the rear bench, which means they’ll assault your temples if you’re not on your guard. Both me and one of my six-foot colleagues clattered our heads into them on our descent into the rear seats.
Before you buy
Set out a very clear list of your expectations. If you were hoping the No.4 would be a quirky yet similarly capable alternative to the BMW 1 Series, you’re going to be disappointed – especially for the money. Both cars cost about £32,000, but the DS No.4 doesn’t drive as well as the Beemer, and its infotainment system is infinitely more frustrating.
Build quality also isn’t quite as strong and the technology underpinning the car isn’t as sophisticated. For example, the lane assist on my test cars simply didn’t work. It couldn’t care less if the car strayed into the path of an oncoming bus, whereas my old BMW M135 long termer would shunt me towards opposite verge to avoid grazing one of its door mirrors.
The only trump card the No.4 holds over its German rivals is how compliant its ride is, but I’m not sure that’s enough to compensate for the average experience it offers elsewhere. And this is probably why DS has struggled to sell as many units as its German counterparts. Audi and BMW have set the customer expectations for the class – but DS is hell-bent on forging its own path.
Verdict
I applaud DS for doing something different. It’s refreshing to drive a family hatchback that so unashamedly shuns sportiness in the pursuit of comfort. The trouble is, the comfort the No.4 offers isn’t consistent enough to recommend it over the A3 or 1 Series.
I’m not just talking about ride quality, either. Refinement is disappointing for the PHEV model, rear headroom is decidedly average and the infotainment system is going to irritate you every time you’re forced to interact with it. If it was way cheaper than its German rivals, I’d be telling everyone to rush out and buy one. But it isn’t. So, I can’t.
However, if you still find yourself drawn to the No.4, (and you can’t make the electric model fit into your lifestyle), I strongly recommend you opt for the mild hybrid. It’s the more polished product overall, with the most characterful engine and the most refined driving experience. It’s a little less compliant than the other models in the range, but that’s worth sacrificing for the money you’ll save.