this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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It'll be interesting to see if Americans would ever go for a "City Car". I believe Citreon are bringing the ami to the USA and I'd be tempted to get one a second car - it's certainly well under that pricepoint.
To be honest I don’t see much use for this vehicle in the US. Even in most cities, you will likely need to drive on the highway sometimes, which this can’t do. And if I’m not on high speed roads, why wouldn’t I just use a bicycle? Particularly as e-bikes are now widely available and far more affordable than this thing.
As a parent, I don't know if I agree. It takes significant effort to get my kid out on a bike as our road system isn't great for them. (My city is actually fairly good, but we still can't, for example, get to his school without needing to ride on the road)
If it could do 45mph and had a 40 mile range then it'd work for nearly all our in-town trips. We have a phev that can only do about 20 miles on battery and at the start of the pandemic we went 9 months without needing to put gas in it. I wouldn't want it as our only vehicle but it'd be pretty viable as our secondary one.
The top speed is 28. So that’s what I’m saying, this vehicle occupies largely where riding a bike is fairly safe.
Maybe in some places, but that's definitely not true in my city. The intersection i can see from my home office window has a 35mph speed limit and their are accidents there all the time. I haven't seen anyone badly injured, but there was at least one that went up a berm, over a multiuse bike path, through a fence and crashed into a neighbor's house.
I'd totally take my 9 yr old on a 3-4 mile bike ride if we're going somewhere that we can get to on protected bike lanes, but there are lots of places in this city that aren't accessible that way and I'd be much happier in a small city car. I've taken him along a 45 mph road on a few occasions and it's nerve-wracking, legally you aren't allowed to pass a bike until you can give them 3 foot of space but it happens ALL THE TIME and it's a real deterrent to cycling for us.
The 28mph top speed i think is a european classification thing, but yeah that'd be the showstopper for me - not the size or range.
Here in Montreal we have a very popular car sharing company that allows many of us to not own cars.
It's biggest issue at the moment is that the company can't buy cars as quickly as demand increases. This type of cars would be a great addition to their park since a lot of the trips their customer do are short inner city trips.
Just some thoughts:
I've owned a first gen Leaf for about 6 years and it's my daily. I bought it for very cheap. My commute is about 25 miles total on surface streets and I've put about 40k miles on it. The usable range is probably 40 miles if you want to take care of this style battery, which I do because a new one is the value of the car.
It's been a good experience but I need to have a 2nd car or a rental if I want to leave town. It's worked for me, but there's no way anyone else I know would accept this.
IMO, the experience of "refilling" the car will need to be much quicker for wide adoption in the US, especially for those who are not able to charge at home. You'd also have to convince people that going electric is better for some reason, be it a feeling that you're saving the earth(which is debatable depending on all kinds of factors) or that the performance of some models is pretty awesome.
America loves small cars... When gas prices are way up. Remember the VW beetle? I remember during the great recession when gas was up to $4 a gallon, suddenly everyone wanted a small, fuel efficient car.
What a cool little car!
Their Oli concept car is probably even cooler and would likely work better in the US market.
That looks amazing!
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