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The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range
21–30 of 363 posts
Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range
#22If this was half the price, say £3,500, I'd probably get one. The price seems wildly out of line with what you get. Also I wonder about modding - larger battery, a roof rack and a bright orange paint job to compensate for lack of safety features.
It would probably cost close to that range just for the battery, but it begs the question who this is for. If your budget is £7k there are plenty of used options around that would involve sacrificing much less than this for about double the range (thinking early Leaf/Zoe/Ion). It’s neat, but it reminds me of the Twizy. Just too many compromises to still make sense.
> Just too many compromises to still make sense.
A huge chunk of car journeys are done to move 1 person + limited cargo across less than 30km roundtrip. The sort of journeys that could be served by a e-bike or public transport, but absent infrastructure for both could at least be served by a small car.
Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range
#23Its ugly! A key to Tesla's success is that its cars look like cars, not abominations. Many electric car makers seem to hate cars.
I think this is ugly and cute at once. Like a first gen Scion xB (although that was boxier).
But this is clearly a car to fit a regulatory niche, few will drive this if they have other options, so style isn't really in the budget.
Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range
#24> it has zero airbags. No crash crumple zones. Not a single electronic safety aid. It doesn't even have anti-lock brakes
Exactly. This isn't really a car. It is a fancy electric golf cart with doors.
I like the open nature of a golf cart.
I kinda wish I lived in a golf cart community.
Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range
#25If this was half the price, say £3,500, I'd probably get one. The price seems wildly out of line with what you get. Also I wonder about modding - larger battery, a roof rack and a bright orange paint job to compensate for lack of safety features.
It would probably cost close to that range just for the battery, but it begs the question who this is for. If your budget is £7k there are plenty of used options around that would involve sacrificing much less than this for about double the range (thinking early Leaf/Zoe/Ion). It’s neat, but it reminds me of the Twizy. Just too many compromises to still make sense.
> If your budget is £7k there are plenty of used options around that would involve sacrificing much less than this for about double the range (thinking early Leaf/Zoe/Ion).
The Zoe is a 33 000 € car brand new. Cars must start somewhere before a used market show up to cheapen them further. This one will be even cheaper down the road once it appears in the used market.
As for who uses it, I know plenty of people who own one to do things like small size deliveries, citroen sells a version of this car that doesn't have a passenger seat for the sake of more cargo capacity. It's a pretty nifty car to have as long as you mostly drive it within the city, where most streets don't allow you to go past 30 kilometer per hour. For city dwellers in Europe, it works plenty fine and better than cars that are too big for some of the parking spots you might have taken with a small one like the ami.
Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range
#26> the £7,695 tiny electric car that has no boot, a 28mph top speed and range of just 46 miles
I live in Paris and do everything with an e-bike that also has no boot, no passenger seat, a top speed of ~20mph, a range of ~30 miles... but cost me around €1,200 (since I built it myself).
It now has over 7,500 miles. In day trafic it's probably much faster than the Ami, and it can also be put on a train. Couldn't be happier.
Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range
#27I'm very uninformed on this but at that point why not get a electric quad instead?
For the same reason most people are unwilling to go to work with a bicycle even when they live near their work. Quads are fun vehicles in good weather but you don't want to drive one when it rains the beejesus.
Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range
#28Its ugly! A key to Tesla's success is that its cars look like cars, not abominations. Many electric car makers seem to hate cars.
Did we forget the Cybertruck already?
Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range
#29> Hundreds of Ami rentals line Parisian streets, which you can hire for just €0.26-a-minute (with a subscription fee of €9.90 per month). It's probably nicer - and more hygienic - than taking the Metro.
>And you don't need to have any form of licence to drive one in France!
> Anyone as young as 14 with a 'voiture sans permis' - a certificate to show you've passed a basic road safety course - can hit the road. And because a licence isn't required, they're [reportedly] proving popular among the country's fraternity of disqualified motorists. 'The drink-driver's vehicle of choice' probably isn't a slogan you'll see on advertising billboards, though.
Interesting USP. We saw a similar thing in India when rental e-scooters started appearing everywhere. Basically they're the cheapest and best ways to 'drive' drunk from pub to pub. Why would you want to drive drunk just because you can? Because the only legal mode of transport - cabs - cost 3-4x more during drinking hours at night. So these were quite popular for that.
Over time, however, they got completely taken over by delivery agents, who found it cheaper per mile than any other vehicle
Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range
#30> the £7,695 tiny electric car that has no boot, a 28mph top speed and range of just 46 miles I live in Paris and do everything with an e-bike that also has no boot, no passenger seat, a top speed of ~20mph, a range of ~30 miles... but cost me around €1,200 (since I built it myself). It now has over 7,500 miles. In day trafic it's probably much faster than the Ami, and it can also be put on a train. Couldn't be happi…
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