French car-maker famous for clever, utilitarian design reckons mass EV adoption will kill off SUVs
Is there really life after SUVs for modern car companies? Citroen seems to think so, with its CEO Vincent Cobee making the bold prediction that consumers will turn their backs on high-riding wagons when the electric revolution arrives en masse from 2035.
Cobee was speaking at the launch of the 2023 Citroen e-C4 X, telling the audience that the car-maker is “anticipating something that we believe in, and that there’s an end to the SUV”.
Que diable? [What the hell?]
The growth of the SUV sector hasn’t let up since the turn of the century, particularly here in Australia where high-riding five-doors account for more than half of all new car sales every month.
Brands can’t get enough of them, either; just look at companies like Mazda, which has made an art of hyper-dividing the SUV category.
Modern families – rightly or wrongly – are convinced that the extra space afforded by the wagon-esque silhouette and the taller driving position on offer make the SUV the ideal family car.
However, these same properties will essentially force car companies into redesigning their cars for a new age.
One of the enemies of EV range is aerodynamic drag; the bigger and taller a vehicle is, the harder it is for it to punch a hole in the air, which in turn requires the vehicle’s powerplant to work harder to overcome that air resistance.
It’s why most EVs lose a significant percentage of their claimed range when driven at posted highway speed limits; the motor is working a lot harder to push the car through the air, which in turn asks more of the battery.
“The more you will be concerned about fuel efficiency, about electric transition, the more we can come back to more aerodynamic silhouettes,” said Cobee.
The Citroen e-C4 X is, in industry parlance, a notchback, with a traditional boot lid in place of a larger – and heavier – tailgate.
It still offers more ride height than a typical sedan or saloon, along with the ubiquitous black plastic overfenders that mark SUVs out in a crowd.
Indeed, Cobee acknowledged that Citroen would likely keep “some of the interesting values of SUVs, especially the higher seating position and versatility of the vehicles”.
It’s not a bad plan. One of Citroen’s best-selling cars of all time, the tiny 2CV, appealed to buyers because of its ability to traverse the worst rural roads France had to offer, while its low-rent interior meant it could be used and abused with minimal fuss.
A modern EV like the e-C4 X will be far from low-rent – think of it competing with rivals like the Polestar 2 – but it will need to be clever on a number of fronts.
Weight, for example, is another bugbear of the modern EV, but making production cars lighter is a game of quickly diminishing returns when it comes to real-world costs.
It’s the reason behind the oddball Citroen Oli three-seater concept of 2022, which previewed a roof and bonnet created from honeycomb cardboard amongst other items.
The SUV is set to be part of the new car landscape for some time to come, but if Cobee’s theory is correct, expect to see a new spin on the concept as the age of electrification gets ever closer.
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Keyword: Citroen says EV revolution will bring ‘end to the SUV’