This might help, getting other vehicle drivers hating the drivers of these cars:
When I bought my Nissan Leaf in 2018 at 86, I was sure it would be my last car, but now that may no longer be true. Back then I had relatives and friends far away but within its range, but since year by year, deaths and moves have left no-one distant and I'm left with an extravagant means of travelling 2, 4 or 5 miles on my remaining typical trips.
That doesn't bother me, but in 2021 out of idle curiosity I checked the 3.5 year old Leaf's value with WeBuyAnyCar. At £14,000 for a car I paid £25,000 for I wasn't interested. But now at 4.5 years old I checked again and found in today's crazy car market they want to give me over £19,000. So only needing a very local town car now, I booked a test drive of Citroens little electric Ami model, costing under £8,000. Very popular for two years since launch in France and Italy in particular, it's just been put on sale in the UK and almost instantly had over 2000 people placing deposits for one.
The electric successor to the 2CV, I have to say I was quite impressed with the Ami. Again with a tiny motor of only 6 kW (8.2 BHP), compared withthe Leaf's 110 kW (148 BHP), it accelerated well off the mark to its maximum of 28 mph, limited to that by it being legally a quadricycle and not a car. Of course it's only meant for town and city use, indicated by its 47 mile range, as Citroen say, an Urban Mobility Solution.
Its simple and quite crude in some respects, a Citroenesque mix of minimalism of sophistication, for example the indicators don't self cancel, though it has the refinement of LED headlamps, but without a lights switch because they are on and dipped all the time the car is running. Being classed as a quadricycle it doesn't have to have all the heavy safety features like rollover cage protection, so has glass all round without blind spots, giving visibility from within better than any other enclosed car on the market. Equally no side protection bars or air bags, so it's back the the early 1980s with only seat belts.
But in other ways it's very safe. Definitely a cyclist's friend in several ways, it's almost a foot narrower and almost a foot shorter than a Smart-for-Two so taking up far less space than other cars. Built on light steel frame, the body panels are all very flexible plastic so safer for a person any collision. They are self coloured so no paint necessary, any damage can be ignored since it's not a status symbol, or the panel can be replaced. And of course being limited to 28 mph, there won't be any fast close passes of bikes. Since each Ami in urban areas will be followed by a convoy of other vehicles all limited to 28 mph at best, they won't be fast passing either. Policing without police!
The Ami is also "green". Electric cars typically give 3 miles or less per Kw of electricity, on my Leaf I can just squeeze 4 miles with careful driving but it's usually less. With it's light weight and moderate performance the Ami gets 8 miles from each Kw, all quoted for spring/summer temperatures.
The Ami being a quadricycle can be driven on a moped group AM licence and in France that means 14 year olds can drive one. Here Citroen have been claiming 16 year olds can drive them, but they've misread the law. That is only quadricycles up to 450 kilos weight, but the Ami is somewhat over at 471 kilos, so the minimum age on an AM licence is 17 years.
So will I swap? That depends on the market. I've joined the over 2000 with a deposit on the waiting list and my expected delivery is 7th December. If Putin and Zelensky are still being stupid inUkraine, the market is still inflated and I can still collect £19k or more for the Leaf, yes. But if the market offer is well down again, no, I'll continue with all the comforts of the Leaf.
Ami details on this link:
https://www.citroen.co.uk/ami
Of course the reviewers are mainly critical of the Ami, all performance obsessed in the Clarkson mould, they just don't get its purpose. The public do though, as all the comments below the CarWow review below show, critical of the reviewer and liking the Ami:
.
www.theguardian.com
