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

thisismoney.co.uk

231–240 of 363 posts

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

#231
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.

Dad is 77 and biking in the snow just fine. He's never been a car person so he's quite used to it. Always gets studded tires for slippery weather.

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

#232
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You want some 70 year old guy driving a car in your city in the snow? People outlive their ability to drive a car by 5-10 years. If you build a city that welcomes and requires cars, and discourages biking and walking, you are dooming the elderly to spending the ends of their lives at home.

70 isn't old.

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

#233
post #36
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nice, but the roads around here are not safe for bicycles of any sort (think pot-holed winding country lanes with lorries speeding at above the 40 mph limit). Until the government gets serious about lowering and enforcing speed limits and introducing cycling infrastructure, an electric car is necessary.

Do you think a plastic vehicle will fare any better in a collision with the average American SUV or truck?

Given that you can kill all the occupants of an American SUV by getting a fat person to take a good run up and kick the bumper hard, I'd say yes.

At anything above a walking pace shunt in a typical Yank Tank, your insides are mush.

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

#234
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go to work by e-bike. I have a pair of rain pants that I pull over my regular pants, and a rainproof jacket. I wear glasses, but my helmet has a visor. Would a car keep me drier? Yes, absolutely, but I’d still need to walk from parking lot to office, and I’d be stuck with all the other folks in traffic.

What do you do about shoes in rain?

What do you mean? You wear boots or whatever you want to call them, not sneakers.

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

#235
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charging a Model S over an american household plug takes 3 days.

> Charging a Model S over an american household plug takes 3 days. … from zero to full. If you just want to top up the 30-40 miles that are driven in a day, then 10-12 hours overnight is fine with a regular plug. People ask me all the time about how long it takes me to charge my tesla. I tell them that it’s a different mentality than ICE cars: 1. Instead of a cycle of low/empty —> full —> low/empty, it’s a cycle of u…

> If you just want to top up the 30-40 miles that are driven in a day, then 10-12 hours overnight is fine with a regular plug.

Okay, but you probably live in a city in the US, where you don't really drive.

I live in Scotland, and I use my vehicle for work. I don't think I've done less than 100 miles any time I've put the keys in the ignition in years, and quite often I fill the tank a couple of times a day (dual-fuel LPG and petrol) or just burn the dirty stuff.

I don't really "get" what Teslas are for. I don't need something that can accelerate to 60mph faster than if it had been thrown off a cliff - I can't imagine why you'd ever need to accelerate to 60mph flat out - and I don't really have a use for something that'll get me to work and then need charged for three days. Also given that with the cost of electricity and the cost of propane the way it is, it's actually cheaper to drive a V8 Range Rover than a Telsa, I'm just not convinced.

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

#236

I do love this, and hope more things like it gets made so there is choice. It's exactly the kind of thing I want for most of my day to day traveling. It's competition though is what I did instead. Last year I brought a 7 year old Nissan leaf. £9,800. 22Kwh battery (probably degraded about 15%, so estimated actual capacity is around 18Kwh) which gives me about 85 miles range with the current battery state. And I get a…

I guess this wasn’t made targeting you; I’m glad not every vehicle being made it catering to extreme distance needs. There are a lot of places that are walkable or almost walkable. Having cheaper cars for those places that use less material makes it so that more people can have electric vehicles at a time where batteries are a major limiting factor for production.

I'm not sure I'd call 85miles extreme distance. It's very low compared to modern EVs.

I'd say this Citroen is totally targeting me. My need is less than 20 miles a day, and I'm saying I'd be nervous about how little buffer that battery would give me.

My point really was 46 miles range is too low, even for low usage. In poor conditions with heating, etc, if the range halves that doesn't leave any spare. Unlike an ICE you can't just run it close the bottom of the tank because charging takes time, and has limited locations.

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

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

…it’s 500kg. I don’t think you’re picking it up and walking away with it.

My old Citroën AX weighed about 650kg. I used to park it in spaces about 6" longer than the car by getting the nose in as close to the kerb as I could, leaving it out of gear, and then getting out, picking it up by the back bumper like a big wheelbarrow, and bouncing it sideways into the space.

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

#239
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year a friend broke 2 ribs and forearm by slipping over some wet leaves on a bycicle - I don't see how that's comparable to a car. Also I don't have windshield wipers on my face (or windshield for that matter) - but maybe I'm just wired like that.

> I don't see how that's comparable to a car. Yesterday, local news, a car crash with all three involved drivers dead.

By slipping on wet leaves ? I guess it could happen but how likely is it ? Mind sharing the link ?

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is 300k? Are you using kelvin here?

300K. Yes. I don't find it very convenient to work with these weird signed temperatures.

That's about an 86 on my scale of intelligibility.
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