Best 7-seater electric cars in the UK: Top picks for 2026

The Kia EV9 isn't just the best seven-seat electric car you can buy, it's one of the best electric cars on sale, full stop. For something that's over five metres long and whose bonnet seems taller than Ivan Drago, it’s really easy to drive. Visibility is excellent and the driving position is infinitely adjustable so it’s easy for anyone to get comfortable. But most impressively, while it seems like a big chunk of tech on wheels, it does that without losing sight of what’s really important: user-friendliness.

The controls are intuitive, there are USB ports everywhere, loads of storage, genuinely useful cupholders — you’d be amazed how many cars get that wrong these days — and enough space in the third row for adults. Lots of seven-seaters don’t have that particular luxury.

The entry-level Air is the one we'd have. It gets the same enormous 99.8kWh battery as more expensive versions for a claimed range of 349 miles and seven seats as standard.

The Hyundai Ioniq 9 shares lots with the Kia EV9 underneath — the two cars were developed together — but Hyundai went in a slightly different direction.

The cabin feels even more lounge-like, the styling is smoother and less futuristic and there's an even bigger focus on refinement. It's incredibly quiet at motorway speeds, rides beautifully and it can charge its 110.3kWh from 10-80% in around 24 minutes if you find a powerful enough 233kW charger. Space is, unsurprisingly, excellent — as per the EV9, adults can use the third row, while the second row has limo-like legroom.

The entry-level model doesn’t have all-wheel drive, but do you really need that? It’ll cost you £8500 to upgrade, which we’d suggest isn’t worth it. The entry-level version has all the space and a claimed range of 385 miles, as well as kit including multi-zone climate control, blind spot cameras, plus wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

The Peugeot E-5008 is probably the seven-seat SUV that’s easiest to recommend. It gives you basically everything you need for around £26,000 less than the Kia EV9.

Seven seats come as standard, the interior is genuinely interesting rather than just another sea of black plastic and if you go for the larger Long Range battery, Peugeot claims a range of up to 413 miles. Even the standard battery will comfortably cover more than what most families drive in a week.

The third row is definitely more children- than professional basketball player-sized, but that's true of almost all these things. Fold those seats away and you've got a genuinely enormous boot of 916 litres, while the middle-row slides and folds to make life easier when climbing into the back.

The E-5008 is genuinely entertaining, as well — the sharpest thing to drive on this list, we’d say. It turns accurately, has a little bit of road feel but without being harsh and from the driver’s seat it feels much smaller than it is.

Nostalgia still works. See the Volkswagen ID. Buzz for details. Everyone over about 40 sees the old Volkswagen Microbus. Everyone younger just thinks it looks mint.

Unlike the original VW people carrier, this one can actually tackle an incline. The seven-seat version gets Volkswagen's larger 86kWh battery and 286PS, which means 0-62mphof 7.9 seconds. Obviously that’s not important in a drag race sense, but it gives you an idea of how easily it’ll cope even with seven people on the go. The GTX model bumps that up to 340PS.

Either way, the cabin feels enormous thanks to its van-like shape, adults can actually sit in all three rows and there are enough Isofix points for five child seats. With all seven seats in place you've still got 306 litres of boot space, but fold the third row away and that jumps to 1495 litres. Which is handy, because if you own an ID. Buzz, you're almost contractually obliged to buy a surfboard.

All modern cars are safe, but if safety is your number one priority, buy the Volvo EX90. Nobody does family cars quite like Volvo, and this feels like the company's greatest hits album.

It's absolutely massive — over five metres long — so as you’d expect, space is generous. Not quite ID. Buzz generous for obvious reasons (it’s not shaped like a van), but adults can fit in the third row and folding it away reveals a 697-litre boot. There's a also small front boot for your charging cables.

There are three power outputs, starting at 333PS and rising to a frankly unnecessary 680PS — that's more than a BMW M2 — while the two battery sizes have usable capacities of 90kWh and 103kWh. It means that no matter how and where you drive, 300 miles between charges should be easy

The cabin is beautifully minimalist, the seats are predictably excellent, and the ride is about as relaxing as a family SUV gets. A true luxury seven-seater, albeit with a luxury price tag to match.

The Tesla Model Y isn't really a seven-seater. It's a five-seater with two extra seats hidden in the boot. You’ll need the Long Range All-Wheel Drive version to get the option, but that’s the best version anyway. Those rearmost seats are definitely best reserved for children — although the kids will love them because they're tucked right under the huge rear window.

The clever bit is that when you don't need the extra seats, they disappear completely into the floor, leaving behind the same enormous boot that's helped make the Model Y consistently one of Britain's best-selling cars.

Then there's the range. Even with seven seats, the Long Range AWD model still claims 387 miles on a charge, while Tesla's Supercharger network remains one of the easiest ways to travel long distances in an EV. The minimalist interior still divides opinion — especially if you'd rather not adjust your wipers through a touchscreen — but as an all-round family car, the Model Y is difficult to fault.

If you need seven seats but don't fancy piloting a five-metre-long SUV through multi-storey car parks every day, the Mercedes-Benz EQB makes a lot of sense.

It's comfortable, easy to place on the road and feels considerably smaller than cars such as the EV9 or EX90. The third row is definitely for kids, but that's hardly a criticism because Mercedes has somehow squeezed seven seats into something that's barely longer than a BMW 3 Series Touring. Better still, the seats fold electrically at the touch of a button, which is a wonderfully lazy feature that you'll end up using far more often than you expect.

Because it's based on the combustion-engined GLB, it doesn’t feel as high tech as some EVs these days, nor does it have the completely flat floor that newer electric cars do. You’d be surprised how much extra space a flat floor seems to create.

The Skoda Peaq is the brand’s biggest electric car yet and, unsurprisingly, is packed with the sort of clever little touches that have become a Skoda trademark. Umbrellas, clever storage, somewhere sensible to put your charging cable... A car designed by people who've clearly spent time living with children.

Brand new from the ground up, it’s the first Skoda to use a floating 13.6-inch portrait style touchscreen. Some might decry this move towards Tesla style minimalism, but thankfully Skoda hasn’t shoved everything onto this screen. There are still physical climate controls and multiple functions on the steering wheel.

It’s properly well-specified too — heated front and rear seats, two wireless charging pads, keyless entry and a massive 91kWh battery good for a claimed 395-mile maximum range. What we’re saying is that the entry-level £52k version feels… Peaq. Sorry.

Most people looking for a seven-seat family SUV won't end up here. Nor should they. The Mercedes EQS SUV costs about the same as the deposit on a Newcastle mansion.

But if you're fortunate enough to be shopping at this end of the market, there really isn't anything else like it on sale. Every UK model comes with seven seats, the middle row slides backwards and forwards electrically and the tech sheet reads like the sort of thing Apple would announce to a big crowd furiously clapping like capitalist seals.

We're talking features like rear wheel steering, which makes the turning circle more like a city car’s, and E-Active Body Control. Boring name, but it can actually lean the car into corners, making passengers feel less like they’re being thrown across the cabin.

It's also astonishingly quiet, even by electric car standards. And the enormous battery means you’ll get a claimed 400 miles between charges.

Let's finish with the least glamorous car here. But also the most sensible. The Peugeot E-Rifter started life as a van and Peugeot hasn't tried particularly hard to hide that. Good. That's exactly why it's so practical.

Headroom is enormous, sliding rear doors make child seats much easier to wrestle with and all seven seats are genuinely usable. Its biggest weakness is range, though. Officially it'll do 199 miles on a charge, which is some way behind the SUVs above and means you can expect closer to 150 miles in real life.

But, if your driving mostly revolves around school runs, supermarket trips and ferrying the kids to McDonalds, that probably won't matter. Sometimes buying the right tool for the job is smarter than buying the fanciest one. And for plenty of families, the E-Rifter is exactly that.