Citroen Ami review

• Overview
• What is it?
• It looks tiny!
• Come on then, put me in the driver’s seat…
• I’m still struggling to see who this is for.
• Eh? What teenager will be able to afford this?
• Crikey. Does it have rivals?
• What's the verdict?
• Renault Twizy
• Driving
• What is it like to drive?
• The ride’s not comfy, then?
• And yet you claim that it’s fun…
• Except when the range runs out… after 47 miles.
• Interior
• What is it like on the inside?
• Buying
• What should I be paying?

Overview

What is it?

The one thing it’s not, is a car. Yes, it looks like one, having four wheels and all, but the Citroen Ami is actually designated as a quadricycle, neatly sidestepping a whole host of regulations needed to be classed as a grown-up vehicle.

So you get a tiny 458kg (including the battery pack) ‘urban mobility object’ designed to be a personal transport module that replaces things like the Tube or a bus ride. Or even an eBike or scooter. Basically the automotive missing link.

It looks tiny!

It is not big, no: well under a metre and a half wide (1.4, in fact) and less than two-and-a-half long, but can seat two in relative comfort. Although not a lot of comfort, and it depends on your definition.

Under the front is an 8bhp motor and 5.5kWh battery pack – and no, those aren’t typos – single-speeding the front axle and providing a top speed of 28mph. Or 29mph if you’re going downhill. Zero to Vmax takes 10 seconds, depending on how heavy you are. Maximum range amounts to 47 miles.

The body itself is made of unpainted/impregnated ‘Blue Ami’ plastic draped over a rudimentary box-section chassis, and if you look closely, you’ll notice the front and rear panels are the same. Meanwhile the side glass and doors (one passenger side opens normally, the driver’s is rear-hinged) are all swappable from side to side. That cuts production costs and makes it cheap. But more on that in a moment.

Come on then, put me in the driver’s seat…

It’s a completely joyful thing to potter around town in. Everybody loves it, and it generates the kind of feel good not possible even in a supercar. Basically the Ami is whatever the opposite of over-compensation is, albeit only for people who commute short distances. And where they very much don’t have to drive on fast A-roads or motorways. Mainly because it’s illegal in a ‘car’ this small and slow…

I’m still struggling to see who this is for.

What this is, is a vehicle designed for the most niche of intra-urban commuting, literally across cities. Think of it less as a car, and more of the world’s most complicated umbrella: instead of biking across town or risking the vagaries of public transport, you just totter around in an Ami, keeping yourself secure and your hair dry.

There’s also now an ambitiously-named Cargo version of the Ami, which ditches the passenger seat in favour of extra space for boxes and goods, making it a Deliveroo-slash-Amazon-warehouse chariot… of sorts. We’ve got a separate review on it here.

Consider too that you can legally drive one of these in the UK from the age of 16 as well, as long as you’ve got a moped licence.

Eh? What teenager will be able to afford this?

Well now, prices start from £7,695, undercutting the next cheapest vehicle you can buy in the UK – that’d be the Kia Picanto, since you ask – by almost six grand. Timely reminder that this is not a car…

More relevant is the finance: Citroen can get you into an Ami for £99 a month with the right deposit. The thinking here is that the Ami will appeal to a younger generation whose means are limited by cash and ends are limited by lifestyle.

Crikey. Does it have rivals?

Not in the traditional sense. Perhaps the Renault Twizy, but you can’t get those here now. The Ami is in a segment of one, which means its competition extends to bicycles and the act of walking. And maybe those hoverboard things that were all the rage a few Christmases ago.

Keep an eye out for the Fiat Topolino: Citroen’s Stellantis sibling is having its own crack at this very platform, and appears to have nailed the cutesy styling based on what we’ve seen so far. That might start to make the Ami’s gawkish looks seem a bit lazy, even if they’re in the name of economising.

The Ami is a rubbish car, if you could call it one. But it’s an entirely loveable object. It’s not fun to drive, but it is fun to use. In a city, at least. There’s a joy in its simplicity; in the way that it’s been designed; in the way that Citroen is embracing quirkiness. It’s not sophisticated or ground-breaking, but it is fun and interesting, and if it’s convinced a few Londoners to commute in one rather than mostly idling a big SUV, then that’s a good thing.

It’s also a good deal safer than a e-scooter or bike given the UK’s variable driving standards, not to mention weather. Would we buy one? Probably not. Rental? If there was somewhere convenient to charge, possibly. But for everyone else, a car-share, pay-as-you-go Ami experience would cover most bases.

Renault Twizy

£6,940 – £12,640

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Driving

Driving

What is it like to drive?

You don’t so much drive an Ami as much as occupy it for a period of time. It’s not complicated, and to be honest, there’s not much in the way of dynamism to get acquainted with.

Just press one of the three buttons (park, neutral, drive) on the driver’s seat base and then press either the ‘stop’ or ‘go’ pedals. There is acceleration, just not much of it, and not for very long.

A top speed of 28mph is an insult to the words ‘top’ and ‘speed’, but given the average inner-city commuting speed – according to government statistics – is 11.4mph, this really isn’t a problem. Meanwhile the brakes work and the suspension… exists. That’s pretty much it.

The ride’s not comfy, then?

If you decide to attack a speed hump at full tilt, you’ll quickly find the damping is at best rudimentary, the hard seat pad not kind to your spine. Approach cobblestones like you would a hungry lion.

There are no modes, sporting or otherwise. The handling is pretty much the same, in that the steering is so slow that getting the Ami to behave anything other than utterly predictably simply isn’t worth the effort.

Those 155-section tyres don’t so much provide absolute grip as light friction, so the worst that’ll happen is graceful understeer. Or so we thought. A while ago someone managed to roll one of these in Monaco (Google it). So it’s not entirely idiot proof…

And yet you claim that it’s fun…

It really is. Once you accept that the Ami is to driving what Ken Loach is to children’s television, there’s amusement to be had. No, you can’t lane-split like you would on a bike or scooter, but the Ami can squeeze into gaps that a proper car simply couldn’t, park in places that aren’t places. And when you do, people don’t hate you. It’s not fun to drive, just fun to use. The novelty never wears off.

Except when the range runs out… after 47 miles.

What is quite interesting is that although the Ami has a limited range from that 5.5kWh battery, it will pretty much do what it says it will do in terms of miles – unlike a lot of ‘proper’ electric cars. And when you do the maths, 8.55mi/kWh is twice the efficiency you get from most half-decent EVs as well.

Got a 10-mile cross-London commute? Easy. Even if it takes you a couple of hours, you’ll still only use 10-12 miles of range. And you’ll be feeling even more smug when you’ve fully topped up for less than £2. Don’t believe us? The logic is irrefutable.

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Overview

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Interior

Interior

What is it like on the inside?

As an example of what to expect when you slip into an Ami, it’s probably wise to point out that there are three buttons on the dash. Three. One for the fan (single-speed, sounds like a hairdryer), one for the hazard lights and one for the heated rear windscreen. That’s it. You engage drive, neutral and reverse with a trio of buttons in the base of the seat.

Both seats are plastic spoons accessorised with a bottom and back pad, the consistency of which apes that of the average kitchen worktop. It looks like an interior you could hose down… and that’s probably the point.

Also on the dash is a dock for your smartphone, along with a USB port for charging. Luggage lives in either a small cubby behind the driver’s seat or to the left of the passenger’s legs, although you’re talking about a shopping or handbag rather than a trip to Jewson’s for a stack of lumber. Just 63 litres of cargo space, going by the paperwork.

After that, there’s a couple of cupholders, a set of rubberised trays on the dash and fixed-with-a-flap, prop-plane style windows: Citroen reckons these pay some sort of vague homage to the 2CV, but more likely it’s one less mechanism to deal with. The kind way to put it is that there’s not much in the way of stuff to fail here.

Interestingly, it feels ultra airy thanks to a panoramic glass roof and lots of glass to the fore across the dash. Be warned though: if you’re even remotely tall you’ll need to hunch your neck down to see traffic lights, and those tiny mirrors are prone to shaking themselves out of position. Which is annoying when you’ve got in and out half a dozen times to adjust the passenger-side one before setting off.

One thing to point out is that the charging cable is tethered and stuffed into a hole in the passenger side door, although there is a handy cutout for the cable so you don’t need to feed it through the window to charge.

And the doors – mirrored as they are, open suicide-style for the driver and conventionally for the passenger, as well as having different locking/opening mechanisms. Quirky.

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Driving

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Buying

Buying

What should I be paying?

Your starting price for the Ami is £7,695, though you can spec three different colour packs (orange, grey and blue) which add coloured wheel caps, door nets, floor mats and a few other bits for £400. There are two additional trim levels too.

Don’t get your hopes up, we’re not talking Burmester surround sound and massage seats here. If the unadulterated Ami is the entry-level car then Pop spec is the mid-range trim: with it you get one of the colour packs, plus a variety of black exterior trim pieces and some stickers for the doors. It costs £8,495. No, we can’t see the point either.

Then there’s the top-spec Tonic version: it’s priced at £8,695 and gets all of the above (no, not the massage seats) plus a few extra, khaki-coloured cosmetic bits. Literally nothing else of substance. Not even a cushion for those with spine anxiety.

You can also get a Cargo version for £7,995, although that strips away the passenger seat and with it most of the fun. We don’t really see the Ami as a workhorse in any capacity, but apparently there are those who do: read more about it here.

If it were our money – and this is a stretch for us to imagine – we’d keep it simple and go for the most basic two-seat Ami. And if you’re desperate for a splash of colour it really wouldn’t be that hard (or expensive) to get your own stickers made.

As alluded to in the Overview, the real magic here is the finance on offer. A deposit of just over £1,300 will get you into an Ami for £99 per month over two years. If you’re on a limited budget and only really need to get about town, that’s potentially a very big draw.

As are the charging costs: less than £2 will fill the Ami up from empty, with the tiny battery needing just three hours to replenish on a normal three-pin plug. Not that you get one of these as standard: Citroen UK supplies a European-to-Type-2 converter as standard, so you’ll need to buy your own adaptor if you’re charging without a wallbox.

As far as long-term use goes, there’s not much to go wrong or service, and you can bluster it around without worrying about small bumps or scratches. It’ll likely be a car-sharing favourite.

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Interior

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Specs & Prices

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