Peugeot Polygon concept fires starting gun on new 208 and 2008

Peugeot is counting down to a new concept car, the Polygon, which will show the future tech and design direction of its new small cars.

The 208 hatchback and 2008 compact SUV are Peugeot’s best-selling cars but they’re now six-years-old. The Polygon concept will begin the renewal process and it doubles down on ‘Hypersquare’, the yoke-style steering wheel introduced by another concept car – Inception – from 2023.

“This concept car is going to show elements of what could be a B-segment future car for Peugeot,” said Alain Favey, the brand’s CEO, in a call with Auto Express. “Our designers have worked on a lot of very creative ideas that we will share in the next few weeks.”

While the Peugeot Polygon concept will preview future models from the French brand, you can still buy new examples from its current line-up via our Buy a Car service, such as a new Peugeot 208 for less than £17,500 or a new Peugeot 2008 for just over £20,000.

Steer-by-wire – which replaces the mechanical link between the steering and front wheels for a digital connection which relies on software to read and translate driver inputs – underpins the Hypersquare approach. It’s an attractive technology because it eliminates components, bringing a cost, packaging and safety benefit, and allows a broad spectrum of variable steering responses. So a steering rack could be set up for super-fast reactions, or minimal inputs could be magnified to ease parking.  

Peugeots are already known for their direct, almost arcade-game steering response, with a small, low-set steering wheel part of its ‘i-Cockpit’ ‘Human-Machine Interface’. The Polygon – and resulting production cars – plan to take this to the next level.   

“It’s really about agility, especially with Hypersquare [and its] steer-by-wire, which we’ve already presented many times,” continued Favey. 

The big news is that Peugeot plans to let journalists drive the concept, as part of the education process of explaining what the digital rack can do. “We believe this is the next step in the saga of i-Cockpit which we started 13 years ago, with its very specific seating position, smaller steering wheel and now with a panoramic, 21-inch floating curved screen [in the 3008 and 5008].”

The new 208 is about a year from going public, and it seems almost certain it will feature steer-by-wire. That should introduce a new era of dashboard architecture, topped with a version of the Inception’s rectangular, fast-acting yoke that had four holes for driver comfort. The UK market will likely get the new 208 in time for the March 2027 plate change.

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