Citroen Ami review - the weirdest EV in the world!

this is a citroen ami and it's a bit like a 17 year old jaguar s-type v8 now bear with me you see i know that the ami is a little electric car which if you're in france you can drive from the age of 14 but just like that old jaguar they both cost around five and a half thousand pounds see it's the same anyway in this video i'm going to review the little army and to do that i'm going to talk around the exterior the interior i'm going to take it for a drive i'm going to launch it from north to some miles an hour and i'm going to do a brake test and try to drift it now if you want to see some more strange car reviews make sure you subscribe to this channel and hit the bell icon to turn your notifications on that way you won't miss a single upload anyway i'm matt watson and you're watching car wow buying a new car then head to car wow and my team will help you find your next car at a fair price car wow your one stop car buying comparison site right let's start this video review by talking about the design of the ami here at what i think is the back because it looks a bit like the front in fact the whole car looks a bit like a child's toy it seems to be built from similar flimsy material as a child's toy as well it's also like just maybe by leaning on it anyway let's move on to the wheels 14 inches in diameter there they are steel wheels with some plastic trims over the top not sure about that reflector it's just been stuck on don't like this bit look an air bump like you get on citroen's bigger proper cars now check out this door look it opens backwards like an old fiat 500 and in fact you got some retro style little circular door mirrors moving to the front at least i think it is the front yes it is because the lights are clear here whereas at the back they're red for the brake lights but the body panel is identical reason is that allows citroen to save money on building this car because it doesn't have to design a different front and a different back it also makes it cheaper to ensure because the parts just cost less so you can just whack on a front onto the back and the back onto the front just change the lights get it also it's a mirror image left to right because if you come around here you'll see this door actually opens that way because it's flipped funny funny little thing what do you reckon the look of the citronami do you like it can you drive something like this wouldn't you want to be seen dead in it it's not it's still going now let's talk about performance because obviously that isn't what the army is about at all anyhow you've got an eight horsepower electric motor drives the front wheels via a single speed gearbox you've also got a 5.5 kilowatt hour battery pack which can charge from empty to a full using a normal three-pin socket in just three hours and that'll give you a range of 45 miles but what you want to know is how quick this thing is well let's launch it and time it from not to 25 miles an hour i should put the handbrake on really okay let's see how quick this little citroen ami is over the eighth of a mall and the quarter mile to do that i've got my specialist timing gear here here we go i think this launch is going to be brutal let's do this it wasn't so naught to 25 miles an hour is 7.38 seconds i think we've hit a limiter at 27.8 miles an hour come on where's the eighth of a mile eighth of a mile in 19.33 seconds bear with me while we complete the standing quarter mile don't click out the video almost there oh my god this thing did a quarter of a mile in just 35.53 seconds that is a record for the slowest car i've ever launched on car wow to see the quickest car i've ever launched on car wow click on the pop-out banner up there to watch my in-depth video review of the rimac nevera that was boring with such incredible performance you're going to need some pretty beefy breaks and that's exactly what the ami hasn't got at the front you've got disc brakes at least and they fit inside these 14 inch wheels with a few inches to spare either side so they're probably about 10 inches in diameter at the back you've got drum brakes this is a brake test from well whatever the top speed is now i'm going to do a brake test from 25 miles an hour also known as 45 kilometers an hour and see how long it takes this little ami to stop i wonder if it has abs that will be a no tires oh it stopped from 25 miles an hour in seven meters sorry french people now let's talk about this car's incredible chassis so it's made out of a steel box section also you've got mcpherson strut suspension at the front trailing arm at the rear the rear suspension is actually fully independent it looks like there's coil overs as well springs and dampers that rear suspension is actually more sophisticated than that on a normal citroen c4 because that has a simple torsion beam rear suspension i think we better put this car's handling to the test right now time to assess the dynamic capabilities of this little citroen army it's french french are famous for doing brilliant hot hatches and it's not a hatchback but it's french it's half of it right we're getting up a hill you're losing a bit of speed i'm going to chuck it into this corner and lift off the accelerator see if i can get some lift off oversteer while they have these bumps oh my god yeah yeah you feel the bumps yeah you feel the bumps oh oh it's a white knuckle ride imagine being 14 and french and just getting to home this thing around i wish i hadn't slowed down because yeah you want to keep your momentum up in this thing judge where the hills are because you need to make the most of the decline so you can get up the inclines otherwise you may as well be walking here we go here we go here comes the decline let the fun recommence oh it automatically starts to break i was hoping that when you're going down a hill you could just roll and go faster but no it automatically limited top speed and it will use engine motor braking to slow you down if you start to go down a steep incline so you can never go faster than that limited top speed i guess this car isn't about you know hooting it around a twisty road it's just for people to get from a to b very cheaply and when they're too young to drive a proper car now let's look a bit in depth at the interior of the ami so because you've got all this glass it's a little bit like even a greenhouse which isn't great on a hot day like today because i'm absolutely sweating buckets and there's no air conditioning all you've got is a fan which makes quite a racket but actually doesn't blow that hard i suppose you can open a window but look look how the window opens looks like an old 2cv so you can get a bit sweaty in there yeah there are a few things i do like though like these practical additions on the dash so there's a cup holder there look there's a little cubby just here which is full of dead insects this area here for pens this oh and look you can hang a bag off there door bins are massive though absolutely huge the seats aren't too uncomfortable either considering there's not much to them now you can't move the passenger seat at all and you can't recline the driver's seat but you can move it forwards and backwards we've got some tech in here look there's a place for your mobile phone yes you have to bring your own tech actually like well it kind of fits my silly big samsung fold yeah sort of fits speaking of which there's space for a bluetooth speaker there because there's no stereo in this car there is a usb input there for charging your mobile phone and lucky here a digital driver's display though the display i think was actually made back in the 1990s that's very blocky like an old digital watch check this out though a car like should have an appropriate sounding horn that is the right horn for a car like this there's fabric door pulls like in a porsche 911 gt3 in terms of putting the car in gear up there's nothing up here your gear selectors down here you've got drive neutral and reverse select whatever you want use that's alright and off you go tell you what though this steering wheel it's it's the ugliest steering wheel i've seen in any car here and there's certainly no airbag in this in fact because this isn't actually a proper car it's a quadricycle it doesn't have to reach the same kind of safety standards and that brings down to five or nine things about the citronami the orange storage solutions on the dash really reflect badly in the windscreen it's quite annoying in it there's no ratchet mechanism in a door hinge so it constantly swings open or shut depending on which way the slope your part on is going there's only one windscreen wiper so while it will clear water from the driver's side in torrential rain it never actually clears from the passenger side so for the passenger you don't get a great view looking forward there's no central locking on this car you have to use a key look that's that's the wrong key you see you have one key for the door and one key for the ignition it's like being back in the 1980s the ami doesn't have a rear view mirror and because the side mirrors are rather small if you really want to see behind you you have to just turn around and look over your shoulder a little bit like if you're on a motorbike it's not all negative though here's five good things about this car you know how in most electric cars you carry the charging cable in a bag in the boot and it eats into your luggage space well there's actually a little space for the charging cable in the i mean get it from out of there plug it into the wall then you just put the cable back in there when you're done the citroen ami has a turning circle of just 7.2 meters by comparison the turning circle of a london black cab is 7.6 meters as a result this ami is super maneuverable and if you want to you can use it as a little merry-go-round [Music] you might think that in such a small little box as this there'd be no room to stall luggage not true is that sign down there it's because that area is dedicated to be able to hold a suitcase today and it can in france which is the only place the army is sold at the moment not only can you drive it from the age of 14 you can actually hire one for 25 p per minute now by comparison a lime bike is 15 p per minute but obviously the ami can seat two so two line bikes will be 30 pm so this is cheaper to rent per person than a lime bike and obviously if it's raining it's much more pleasurable to use to get from a to b check it out a manual handbrake which is perfect if you're a french teenager who wants to be the next sebastian lowe because it means oh yeah plenty of handbrake turn practice do you know what i haven't actually tested this car in the environment that it's designed for so now i am going to drive it in town now the speed limit is not such an issue 28 mile an hour top speed 30 mile an hour legal limit in the uk town and in places in london it's 20 so more than enough do you know what i fancy a quick drinkie i don't know if i can pop in here people are looking at me like i'm driving something a bit odd hello got my car i don't think he does like it anyway let's get out of here let's say it handles a roundabout right which way do i want to go no not this way oh look at this tight turning circle right that's enough for that don't get squished by the truck where to next it's gonna be interesting to see what it's like fitting into a parking space so there's a little shopping area there let's go in here should be easy to squeeze it into a slot speedup it's a bit interesting in it yeah it's going to be simple look hey easy peasy now i wonder reversing how it should be easy in fact that gives me an idea [Laughter] hey i mean so short this car you can actually drive it like this people probably aren't aware that i am going backwards because the back is the same as the front this is perfectly normal people nothing to see here this is so ridiculous right i've had enough of going backwards let's go forwards again yeah that's what i'm talking about right i think i'm done with yummy i'll just find somewhere to park it and maybe this is the ideal place yeah that's perfect i'll do just leave it in here i wonder if i can get out yeah just about [Music] so then what's my final verdict on the citroen ami should you avoid it should you consider it should you shortlist it or should you just go right ahead and buy it well if you're 14 years old and you live in france and you want an ev that's cheap go right ahead and buy the ami for everyone else though avoid it and just get a 17 year old jaguar s-type v8 instead hey if you enjoyed the video please give it a like also let me know if any other videos you'd like me to do in the comments below if you click there you can watch some more videos and if you click on that box there you can actually sign up to the car wow newsletter where we'll keep you up to date of all the latest news and reviews from the car 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Channel: carwow

Views: 1,805,495

Keywords: carwow, mat watson, car review, car review 2021, new car review, ami, citroen ami, citroen ami review, citroen ami review 2021, ami review, new citroen ami, new citroen ami ev, ami ev, ami ev review, ami electric car review, best electric car, best city car, best electric city car, best ev, cheapest ev, cheapest electric car, cheap electric car, cheap citroen electric car, electric car review

Id: 977cZO0qXEs

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 09 2021