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The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range

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Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range

#71

Post by Xylakant »

natch wrote: post #50

Low range means fewer batteries cells (or pouches) means less parallelization means slower charge speeds. However this is probably not a huge issue since the use case for a short range car like this is charge at home at night, and use it only around town.

I checked the charge time for a twizy a while ago and that’s in the same ballpark regarding battery size, even slightly bigger. It charges to 80% in 2.5 hours and to full in 3.5 hours on a standard European wall socket. No fast charge, obviously, but plenty usable.

Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range

#72

Post by wishfish »

There's a similar selection of electric vehicles at Alibaba. I'm a little tempted by the electric truck on offer. On my rural property, it might actually be useful. Even if not useful, would be fun to drive around. It's not street legal, but my small town has no problem with ATVs & golf carts. And it has air conditioning.

The shipping process sounds very painful, so hoping something like this would show up at local dealers. I'd think the ATV and small tractor dealers could find a market for these.

Previous HN Post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32231209 A video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bixJDOH864U

Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range

#74

Post by masklinn »

frankus wrote: post #65

There’s a (YC?) company called Nimbus working on a similar class of vehicle: https://nimbusev.com/ . They’re still pre-series-production IIRC but if they pull it off it’s a similar price point for a much higher performance vehicle. There’s a lot of overlap with an ebike in terms of use cases but when the it’s cold and/or pouring down rain I’d be much more likely to use something like that than my ebike. Likewise when…

Double the battery and double the speed for the same price?

Yeah that sounds believable. Reminds me of the original price estimates for the Lightyear One.

I guess they're really banking on the part where they rent it out for double the price.

edit: spec sheet doesn't seem to pass even a cursory sniff test:

> Nimbus One - 9 kWh (swappable)

> Charge Time (0-95%) Under 5.5 hours from a standard household plug

This is an american product so a standard household plug is 15A, NEC doesn't allow continuous loads (>3h) to exceed 80%, so you get 12A to play with. At 120V that's 1440W, which means 6 hours (5:56 specifically) to charge the battery to 95% assuming the battery can handle full power for that entire range.

They clearly aren't talking about a 20A circuit as by my reckoning that'd charge in a hair under 4:30.

Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range

#75

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

zac23or wrote: post #5

Its ugly! A key to Tesla's success is that its cars look like cars, not abominations. Many electric car makers seem to hate cars.

The 2CV or the Beetle were cheap but charming.

This one is a hideous yoghurt cup, made to atone for your sins, made by joyless bureaucrats and puritans. The Extinction Rebellion Gretamobile.

Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range

#76

Post by rdl »

The NEV category (basically golf cart) make sense in specific neighborhoods -- not in dense cities (where they're still too big), not in really long distance rural settings (although a Gator/UTV or something on your own property can be awesome), but in the right kind of suburban/resort/etc. community, amazing.

I am not a big fan of bicycle/moped/motorcycle because I usually want more stuff with me if I'm not just going by foot, but something like this would be ideal on a large campus/neighborhood with 15-35mph streets, etc.

I don't think I'd be willing to use a Citroen for branding reasons, but a Toyota or Tesla or Hyundai or something would be great. Not as a first car, and probably not as a second car with 2 adults, but as a third vehicle. Maybe even do graduated licensing and let 14-18 year olds drive this, raising driving age to 18 for regular cars.

Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range

#77

Post by gus_massa »

masklinn wrote: post #62
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s raining/snowing, or too hot, or too cold, I’d much rather be in an small enclosed car than exposed to the elements on a bike. The Ami has a primitive heater but no air conditioning, but there’s no reason that these limitations are inherent to a vehicle of this size. I imagine an Ami-sized car with creature comforts of a regular vehicle would sell extremely well in cities. Biking is great when the weather is a…

> there’s no reason that these limitations are inherent to a vehicle of this size. Of course not, but the manufacturer tried to keep the costs down as much as they could. An Ami with A/C for double the price would be a lot less attractive. Although maybe a reversible heat pump could make the heating kinder on the battery... > I imagine an Ami-sized car with creature comforts of a regular vehicle would sell extremely…

> Although maybe a reversible heat pump could make the heating kinder on the battery...

Isn't a normal AC a reversible heat pump?

Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range

#78

Post by up2isomorphism »

bambax wrote: post #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 happi…

It seems people are never thinking what happens if he is getting old. Good luck when you can still ride a bike when you are 70s and in the snow.

Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range

#79

Post by eastbound »

nayuki wrote: post #63

It's nice to see that the Citroen Ami weighs around 500 kg. In a crash with a person/vehicle/building, it's going to do less damage than a typical sedan weighing ~1500 kg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_Ami_(electric_veh...

Can’t be used to hurt people. Downside, people can carry it, for example move it when it’s misplaced, or steal it.

Re: The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range

#80

Post by [deleted] »

rdl wrote: post #76

The NEV category (basically golf cart) make sense in specific neighborhoods -- not in dense cities (where they're still too big), not in really long distance rural settings (although a Gator/UTV or something on your own property can be awesome), but in the right kind of suburban/resort/etc. community, amazing. I am not a big fan of bicycle/moped/motorcycle because I usually want more stuff with me if I'm not just goi…

[deleted]
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