Tiny, all-electric Citroën Ami is gunning for the TikTok generation
France's Citroën has a new vehicle it hopes will reach a market most major car makers have not tapped - drivers as young as 14.
The French car maker's tiny two-seater Citroën Ami vehicle is powered by a modest six kilowatt electric motor, so under French legislation it can be driven by someone as young as 14 and no driving licence is required.
The vehicle has a 45km/h top speed, its bodywork is plastic and it has a no-frills interior. The 5.5kWh battery takes three hours to charge off a conventional 220-volt plug socket and you can expect a range of up to 70km.
But it has features likely to appeal to tech-savvy teenagers and is on sale alongside smartphones and video games consoles in a major chain of French electronics stores.
In France, to buy the most basic version will cost €6,000 euros (roughly R118,732). Citroën said it has so far taken 1,000 orders for the vehicle from customers in France.
“The first client who came ... was a teenager and his dad,” said Olivier Garcia, head of products for French electronics retailer Fnac Darty.
He said they were looking for a safer alternative to an electric scooter or a moped, the usual modes of transport young French people use to zip around cities.
“So that's a share of our customers that is not negligible,” said Garcia.