I personally love that it is running counter to the trend of car masses and sizes increasing across the world [0]. There's a reason why there's a small, very fun and niche community of Kei car enthusiasts - the case against pavement princesses and absurdist masculine performativity is a strong one.
My car is 945kg and the biggest issue with longer trips is that the chairs aren’t that comfortable. Although at higher speeds it feels a bit dodgy. It does 170 no problem and that feels quite fast already. Top speed is 190 which I only tried once on the autobahn but that’s quite scary. At about 170 acceleration drops significantly and it takes a few minutes to go from 170 to 190. Won’t ever try that again. Cruising at around 150 for several hours is perfectly fine.
At the time I lived in Plymouth, Devon and my parents live in Exeter and still do. In between is the A38, which is a dual carriageway and quite a lot of fun to drive. Halden Hill is a good test of a vehicle!
My old Fester managed about 60mph at the top of Halden Hill, going from Exeter. My current EV can be doing 120mph at that point.
The fester used to start chattering at about 65 and then quietened down at 70-75. After 75 (which of course I never achieved, what with that being illegal) it made a strange whining sound, which was not unpleasant. It passed away at M5 J30 (Exeter Services) with at least two shot cylinders.
I had no problems going 190-210 on a motorcycle. It's just like boat hull speed, after some limit no matter what you do it just won't go faster.
Why would you think that? Well, you sort of explain it, but you don’t have any evidence or experience to back it up, so I’m still not sure why you think it?
Back in the day (think 1990s) plenty of small European hatchbacks weighed less than or around 1000kg, and noise at highway speeds was not a problem: Peugeot, Citroen, Renault, VW, Fiat, and others all had small hatchbacks that were absolutely fine, and perfectly comfortable, at motorway speeds for long distances.
My first car was a used 1998 Renault Clio: depending on which engine and trim level you bought they either weighed a bit less than 1000kg, or a bit more. I looked mine up and it weighed 1050kg.
I did about 50,000 miles in that car, including lots of long journeys. Back then I had a far too heavy right foot - which eventually got me a speeding fine - and even then noise wasn’t an issue on the motorway.
There’s so much more to how noisy a car is inside than merely sound insulation. Aerodynamics are a huge component, but so are shut lines, seals, and panel gaps. Materials and surface finishes also matter. Even things like the shape of the wing mirrors, or how the shape of the front corners and headlights direct air around and past the wing mirrors[0], can have a massive impact on whether or not a car is noisy at speed within the cabin.
This is Hacker News. We all to a greater or lesser extent work or dabble in incredibly detail oriented disciplines. Why would you assume disciplines outside those in majority representation here aren’t equally, or even more, detailed?
[0] I want to say either the Nissan Note or the Nissan Leaf had nobbly protrusions on its headlights specifically to reduce cabin noise by changing the way air flowed around the wing mirrors.
Because there's literally a market carve-out for city-driving electric cars like the Leaf and the BMW i-series. As much as I would love for a group of engineers to go hard on specs out of passion, I also believe that corporations are run much more by MBA-brained types than engineers now and any over-engineering outside of strict business criteria will be immediately vetoed and dumped
> My first car was a used 1998 Renault Clio
And these days the over-reliance on plastics for structure and cost reduction in combination with large scale production sourcing issues that are hangovers from a global pandemic and an increasingly aggressive imperial trade regime by certain bad actors means there's little chance you are getting similar quality standards like those from 20+ years ago
Enshittification is a real thing and I'm not the kind of corporate brand loyalist who still believes these companies are going out of their way to make a car better than it needs to be
And? Do you think these cars are incapable of highway driving? What do you think happens when manufacturers release cars that are terribly noisy in the cabin at highway speeds?
I’ll tell you: what’s always happened. Reviewevers and consumers will slag them off and people will vote with their wallets.
A lightweight car is not a car that inherently has to be unpleasant to drive at speed.
And you think cost cutting is new? Robert McNamara and his “whizz kids” near ruined the reputation of the Ford Motor Company due to quality issues stemming from his relentless cost cutting in the 1950s and 1960s. What he and, really, what the rest of Detroit were doing enabled the success of Japanese manufacturers in the USA because they made a higher quality product and charged less for it.
> And these days the over-reliance on plastics for structure and cost reduction
People have been complaining about this since the 1980s. Plastics have been used extensively in cars for decades, including in ways that compromise the durability of critical components and sensors. This is not a new problem.
It is sheer ignorance to claim that any car weighing less than a ton will inherently be unpleasant to drive at highway speeds.
This one looks about as much like the original 2CV as a BMW Mini looks like an Austin Mini, that is, not very much.
If it was just about the looks it would be boring as hell but if you ignore the cosmetics, it's still light weight and low cost by the standards of other modern electric cars.
Remember this is the very bottom segment of market and a very competitive space to be in.
This is not a car aimed at me but I still think it's interesting.
Its a nice design though good to see from Citroen who have spend too long oscilating between no personality and just weirdly quirky (citroen cactus anyone?)
The Renault Zoe was discontinued 2 years back, the apt comparison these days would likely be the fun-size (and quite similarly styled!) Renault Twingo.
The Nissan Leaf costs about twice as much as any of those here in Spain, and even the budget-priced Nissan Juke is quite a bit more.
Realistically, at the price they pitch it, it's mostly positioned to cannibalise sales of Citroen's own ë-C3.
It's a typical example of boots theory. So cheap and compromised you'll spend more in the long run.
The only thing keeping European auto makers alive at this point is tariffs.
Later versions could do 65mph. 75mph downhill with the wind at your back.
It feels like going 200 kmh when you push it to 80 :)
It was also the ultimate gangster car for European film makers.
The Vichy-french cops use it in Joseph Losey's movie Mr. Klein, there are lots of them on screen at some point. Great film!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074916/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_acc...
No it's because Citroen had super nifty _non-independent_ suspension back then. Pushing the front wheel up would push the rear wheel down making the car feel like it's floating across bumps. Present in various forms on several models in the 70's.
Turns out linked suspension isn't great for handling and road feel at higher speeds. Modern cars are fast and heavy so these systems have fallen out of favor.
https://www.hotcars.com/extraordinary-suspension-of-citroen-...
The "Frog" (can't remember official name) had a similar system but with hydraulics.
The Citroen 4 had this but with twisting rods instead of springs. You could easily get it up on 3 wheels with spirited cornering.
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/this-is-how-bose-s-failed...
Yes, and ask yourself why they aren't making it anymore. Answer: cost and reliability, which is also a function of cost.
Disappointed to not see flap windows. How am I supposed to get a blood blister from pinching my finger in a regular window?! No apparent hole in the front to hand crank the transmission either. Would’ve been a nice nod to the original if you had been able to hand crank some regen charge back into the battery. (The original crank was so you could start the engine if^Wwhen the battery was flat.)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DjFuvlwGvq0
I’m slightly ashamed to admit this too but it was always a bit fun to get a bump of the petrol tank vent, a tiny pin aperture in the chrome tank cap.
https://www.franzose.de/en/Citroen-2CV/2CV6/fuel-system/ANR1...
Maybe the EV version could come with a chrome truffle holder in the same position, for a similar olfactory kick start before the school run. Please don’t send help. We all turned out fine despite it being 4-star leaded.
Also another commenter here says this is clearly for city driving. What?! This is clearly for taking a shortcut across the lower field to buy a bottle of wine and a pack of Gitanes before the village shop shuts for lunch!
This machine was a tool car and the kind of design icon that earned its place because it interfaced man with machine, not because it looked pretty.
It we are being realistic, the real 2.0CV would be much closer to some Citroen C3 with a token styling element outside (maybe a bit arching roof) and a few minimal token styling elements inside, it would be on a standard EV platform and weigh as much as co-platform "brothers" and it would cost 30k+.
https://electrek.co/2023/11/27/ceo-of-mazda-which-makes-one-...
Its been a decade of sandbagging. Fuck them https://electrek.co/2016/11/17/madza-electric-cars/
Sadly the way it works with EVs in practice is lighter weight = tiny battery = smaller range.
you just don't get a car like that today.