DRAG RACE: Citroen Ami vs Renault Twizy & more – mini electric car battle | What Car?

welcome to probably the slowest electric drag race in the world here we go i'm off on before we do that we should probably run you through our contenders and just before that make sure you subscribe to the channel and if you want to buy any new car head over to whatcar.com to get yourself a great deal now you might have noticed i emphasized the word car because although the vehicles we're focusing on today have four wheels and a steering wheel they aren't technically cars at all they're classed as quadricycles a quadricycle has to weigh less than half a ton excluding batteries in the case of these electric versions and they don't have to pass the same rigorous regulations a normal passenger car does one of the reasons they're normally much cheaper to buy and this is the new citroen ami citroen hasn't decided if it's going to be selling it in the uk or not yet and believe it or not it can actually be driven by 14 year olds bit of a scary thought it is a little bit less than two and a half meters long and 1.4 meters wide and it weighs about 485k so less than half that of a ford fiesta and it's a bit of a head-turner isn't it so the panel at the front of the car and the one at the rear they're actually interchangeable to reduce costs and it makes it a little bit difficult to work out which way it's pointing unless it's driving along of course the doors also they are interchangeable so the one the driver's side is hinged at the rear and again that's to reduce costs the ami has a 5.5 kilowatt-hour battery for context that's around a tenth of the capacity of the one you'll find in new volkswagen id3 and it has a claimed range of 44 miles on a charge the naught 60 time well there isn't one but while the enemy may only have an official top speed of 28 miles an hour how quickly it gets there could be the deciding factor in this drag race but if it's speed you want from your electric quadricycle then step right this way the renault twizy is one of the citroen ami's main competitors and it was first launched in 2012. it's got a whopping 17 brake horsepower electric motor driving the rear wheels it's also got a 45 mile electric range from its six kilowatt hour battery it weighs 474 kilograms and has a top speed of around 50 miles an hour but all that pace does come at a price at 12 000 pounds it's quite a bit more expensive than the citroen amy you've also got to pay extra for the doors now you might be vaguely familiar with our first two contenders but i'm betting you haven't heard of this it's called the micro electric and you can think of it as the rolls royce of electric quadricycles it was launched in 2019 and it's fairly luxurious compared with an ammo or a twizy so if you go for this top spec model you get quite a few creature comforts actually you get air conditioning you get electric windows a reversing camera and even a panoramic roof it also comes with a 10 kilowatt hour battery that gives a respectable range of 95 miles on full charge and the 10 brake horsepower electric motor that can drive the microelectric along at speeds of up to 48 miles an hour by electric quadricycle standards it isn't cheap it costs about the same as a twizy so just under 12 000 pounds but you do get doors as standard but this is the electric quadricycle that started it all it's the indian built river g-whiz and it first went on sale around 20 years ago and actually it was the best selling electric car in the world until 2009 that was basically when another electric car went on sale it had a slightly ambitious 50 mile claimed range not much brake horsepower apparently a top speed of around 40 miles an hour and a weight of 665 kilograms it doesn't have the best reputation but you do still see quite a few around london today but the big question here is which of these electric quadricycles is the quickest in a drag race three two one go here we go i'm off my foot has almost gone through the floor i'm off i'm winning the micro electric he's gaining off the line i'm lagging behind so clearly i just have to beat the army now i have to beat the abbey this is the hot hatch of electric quad recycles yes see you later the twizy might be gaining the other two have just totally pulled away i'm not catching them am i it is definitely gaining it's definitely gaining there we go yes third place all right i'll take that i'll take that [Music] so what did we just see well off the line even though it's apparently heavier and not as powerful as the twizy the micro electric absolutely rocketed away the ami also had a really strong start while the g-whiz being the heaviest and oldest quadricycle in the race was left in the dust and it was the micro electric which crossed our 400 meter finish line first taking 25.5 seconds to do so followed very closely by the twizy behind them the g-whiz recovered from its poor start and finished the sprint in 29.2 seconds while the ami was dead last in wait for it 35.2 seconds the ami did make a very quick start but once it hit its 27.9 mile an hour top speed it was only a matter of time before the 40.5 mile an hour g whiz wheeled it in to claim third place at the front of the grid the twizy recorded the highest top speed of 49.6 miles an hour but because it took so long to get there it finished second to the 44.6 mile an hour micro electric now what are these cars actually like to drive well the obvious point to make is that they are very very different from normal cars now everything's a lot slower you feel much more exposed so it's kind of like you're driving a bike with windows really now with the ami yes it isn't particularly quick we've established that but it goes about its business in a pretty tidy manner to be honest so it's got nice direct steering it does feel reasonably agile yes it's only got a 28 mile an hour top speed which on a 40 mile an hour road is a slight issue you will be a bit of a lorry magnet but for the short journeys at low speeds that this is designed for it actually feels pretty tidy and the price that it is it's pretty remarkable it is pretty basic in here isn't it so you've got material straps instead of door handles you've got quite a lot of hard plastics all over the place as well but it is styled relatively nicely isn't it with the bright colors that you've got and you've got a load of storage up front and actually this manages to feel the most spacious of the electric really far away from the quadrice it feels there's seating for two there's also room for some shopping bags it's not massive but compared to the others it does feel like it's got a bit of room inside there is also a three pin plug hidden in the door here plus down here is where the gear selector is so all in all basic but actually done quite nicely now it's all relative of course so don't go expecting tesla style acceleration but as we've just seen the twizy is reasonably nippy is certainly capable of keeping up with traffic in town so you're not going to be annoying vans and lorries which is a good thing when you're in something that's about the size of an egg box and it's the only one of the vehicles here today that is legally allowed to drive on the motorway although we really wouldn't recommend it it's also quite fun to drive through the corners it feels more stable than you'd imagine for something this narrow but there are two problems one is it's very very noisy you can probably hear this whine in the background and there's a lot of wind and road noise as well because of course there are no proper windows just these pieces of plastic and they're optional the other problem is the ride it is pretty uncomfortable to be honest if you hit a speed bump or pothole it can be really quite painful and it's not helped by the fact that these seats are quite firm but for an electric quadricycle it's pretty good you can carry one passenger in the twizy they sit directly behind the driver here and kind of straddle the front seat so not ideal if they've got long legs but it does make the front feel broader than it does in some of the other cars at least when you've got a passenger on board the interior this car does cost quite a lot more than the ami remember but it doesn't really feel any more up market inside but bear in mind this car doesn't come with windows as standard you're likely to get a few leaves and bits of mud and stuff blown inside so the fact that it's all hard plastic does mean that it wipes clean easily so the micro electric or the me whatever you want to call it it's sort of showing the other electric quadricycles up a bit isn't it we've seen that it might not have the highest top speed but it is the fastest accelerating by quite some way and also it can go a lot further than the other cars on a full charge plus it's got loads of equipment that it comes with as well but what's it like to drive well it is quite noisy in here there's a lot of motor wind and yes you can accelerate quickly but then if you go around the corner quickly there is quite a lot of body roll it doesn't feel particularly stable and really you are going to want to keep to pretty low speed in a straight line in this thing because the steering does not necessarily fill you with confidence and there really is so much body roll in this thing it's crazy but stick to low speeds it's quick it'll go further than the others does it need to do much more than that now the list of equipment might be fairly luxurious compared to the other cars but you probably wouldn't describe this interior as plush you've got some faux leather going on the seats here which doesn't feel particularly great and all these plastics on the dash and the steering wheel it just doesn't really feel like car levels of plushness let's say but look you've got an actual touchscreen and really this is only a little bit worse than vw's latest infotainment system there's also air conditioning you've got a sun roof but still you're never gonna confuse this with an actual car and the space inside you have got seating for two you've got no space in the back and the boot is pretty tiny now the g whiz became a bit of a laughing stock during its lifetime didn't it and that's mainly because of the way it looks but what's it actually like to drive well there are some visibility issues i'll be honest the rear view mirror it's a normal size but it's so close to my face it blocks a large proportion of what i can actually see and i find myself peering around it to check i haven't lost a pedestrian or a cyclist and then further down the windscreen there's a windscreen wiper halfway up so that blocks more of what you can see not great at all and in other respects it's not great to drive either the ride is very bouncy and although it doesn't feel as unstable as the microelectric through corners compared with yammy and the twizy both of those cars of course have been developed by mainstream manufacturers it just doesn't feel particularly stable it doesn't inspire much confidence particularly when you get above about 30 miles an hour and also the brake pedal you need to give it a real shove down to get the car to stop properly now the good news in the g-whiz is that i can slide the driver's seat back far enough so i can get relatively comfortable the bad news is there's very little headroom so someone of my height will have their head resting on the roof lining all the time there is quite a lot of storage space you've got deep pockets there and you've also got another cubby at the base of the dashboard and you've even got a couple of cup holders as well so that's quite useful but one other thing i want to show you so a few decades ago a man called gordon tullock came up with a theory that if car manufacturers were to fit a big spike in the center of the steering wheel of new cars that would actually reduce the number of fatalities because everyone would be so worried about this they'd slow down and they just generally drive more safely and i think whoever designed this car has been inspired by that because if you're in the passenger seat if you're my height at least then there is a grab handle right next to your head and it's not the rubbery forgiving type it is rock hard and even if you go around a corner and knock your head against it it's quite painful so if i were to have an accident in it well i don't really want to think about it so that's not good but remember this is an old car now so if you're looking at buying one of these second hand you'll be spending between fifteen hundred and three thousand pounds loads less than any of the other cars and it is the only car as well that technically has four seats although i'm not sure how four people could fit in here unless they were all three years old if you are buying these you'll want to go for the second generation model which is called the g wiz eye this is that car and that's because it has some chassis improvements to make it a little bit safer but the bad news is it still has a old-school lead acid battery rather than the lithium-ion batteries that modern electric cars have and the major problem with that is that it takes 10 hours to charge this from empty using a domestic three-pin plug whereas the other cars they take around about three hours now the serious point to run home here is that these quadricycles are not cars and because of that they don't have to meet the same strict safety standards put simply you really wouldn't want to have an accident in any of our contenders and the few crash tests that have been performed on quadrus cycles don't make for pretty viewing and considering the twizy and me microelectric cost around 12 000 pounds they're even harder to recommend because you could get a proper electric car like a renault zoe on the used market for that sort of cash but should you be considering any of them well we wouldn't advise it if you plan to venture out onto faster roads on the other hand if you're thinking about an electric quadricycle as a rainproof and slightly safer alternative to a motorbike for driving around the city they can make sense in terms of which is the best one here against the g-whiz and the microelectric the twizy and ami do feel like quadricycles made by proper car manufacturers with vastly bigger budgets and a lot more experience if the ami does eventually go on sale in the uk with a price as low as it is in france then that would be our pick from this bunch you certainly won't be winning any drag races but for cheap city transport it nails the brief pretty well tell us which electric quadricycle you would choose for yourself in the comments below if you enjoyed this video and want to see more like it make sure you subscribe to the channel and if you do want to buy an actual car go to whatcarl.com to get a great deal you

Channel: What Car?

Views: 2,679,897

Keywords: Micro electric, Twizy, Electric quadricycle, Citroen ami, Renault twizy, Citroen ami review, New twizy review, Twizy review, Quadricycle, Electric drag race, renault twizy review, electric car review, mini electric car, Mini electric, mini ev, electric car drag race, Ami review, micro car, Electric car, reva g-wiz, G wiz, Gwiz, Microelectric, drag race uk, me electric, New ev, Ev review, Drag race, reva, doug revolta, Will nightingale, citroen ami8 türkiye, cheap ev

Id: GrDXIj0Mj00

Length: 15min 33sec (933 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 24 2021