Citroen Ami review

Is the Citroen Ami a good car?

The Citroen Ami is certainly charming, but it only makes practical sense for a very select group of urban dwellers. While it adds the weather protection absent on a moped, it’s more expensive and can’t cut through urban traffic in the same way. Its size, performance and range limitations, meanwhile, will make a second-hand city car look more desirable for most.

How much does the Citroen Ami cost?

A moped may be cheaper, but the Citroen Ami still holds the title of the UK’s cheapest new ‘car’. It has a starting price of £7,695 to buy outright or can be acquired on a PCP contract for around £90 per month with a £2,250 deposit.

The Ami is a small EV that made a big splash when the production version was unveiled back in 2020, having been teased as a concept the previous year. After much deliberation and anticipation, it finally arrived in the UK in 2022.

The Ami isn’t even classed as a car in this country – legally, it’s a quadricycle. That means a 16-year-old is allowed to drive it on public roads as long as they have a full AM moped licence.

Every Ami’s plastic body is the same shade of greyish-blue, but you can choose orange, grey or blue details – predominantly for the wheels – when you buy a standard example. There are a couple of more expensive editions, too, if you want your Ami to stand out even more. The Peps costs £8,595 and comes with a decorative spoiler, a black strip at the front, plus some funky decals. Alternatively, for a smidgen over £8,000, you can select one of the colour packs: orange, grey or blue.

For £260, Citroen will also sell you a cargo kit for the Ami, which comprises a central separator, loading platform, protective cover and carrying case.

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The Ami’s single electric motor delivers just 8bhp, but it’s enough to carry the quadricycle to its limited top speed of 28mph in around 10 seconds. This is sufficient in congested urban areas, but we’d like just a little more – even a 35mph limit would add much more versatility once the congested urban roads eventually clear. 

Around town, its tiny size makes it brilliant, though. The Ami’s excellent turning circle – less than that of a London black cab – makes manoeuvring very easy. Even though it’s narrow enough to fit through some gaps that regular cars can’t, you still can’t split lanes as you can on two wheeled vehicles, so it’s not going to make your journey times significantly quicker.

Comfort is more of a problem, however. The thin, hard seats provide virtually no support and the suspension is incredibly harsh. After an hour or so behind the wheel, you’ll be lucky if you’re not in a fair amount of discomfort.

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The Ami has a 46.6-mile range and comes with a built-in charging cable – it’s effectively an EU domestic plug with a Type 2 adapter fitted. Plug this in and you can expect a full charge in around four hours.

In an era of electric cars with 300 miles of range, the Ami might appear lacking, but that’s missing the point of the quadricycle. It’s designed for use in the city as an alternative to public transport or cycling. Even the 5.5kWh battery is miniscule, so a full charge won’t cost a lot, especially if you’ve arranged a cheap electricity tariff.

Almost everything is designed to keep running costs to a minimum, including the body panels, which are cheap and easy to replace if damaged. And like other electric cars, the Ami is exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) road tax until 2025, while the low monthly repayments on a PCP deal will be no harder to stomach than your mobile phone bill.

The Ami is covered by a two-year unlimited mileage warranty, although the battery is covered for three years. You also get three-year free roadside assistance.

According to our expert data, the Ami is expected to maintain between 52 to 54 per cent of its resale value after three years or 36,000 miles.

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The Ami’s interior is as plasticky as the exterior, and about as basic as possible. There are individual buttons to operate the hazard lights, heater and rudimentary ventilation system. A single stalk behind the steering wheel controls the indicators and single front windscreen wiper, plus a button on the end activates the horn. There are no controls for the Ami’s LED headlights – they’re on whenever the car is on.

A panoramic glass roof, which makes the small space feel really quite airy, is one welcome luxury, as is a fairly well integrated cubby hole in front of the passenger seat, which is big enough to accommodate a standard cabin bag. In total, there’s 63 litres of storage space in front of the passenger seat.

Sat-nav, stereo and infotainment

There’s no infotainment system or speakers in the cabin, but you can place your smartphone in the cradle mounted in the centre of the dashboard. There’s also a USB port to keep your phone charged when on the move.

The My Ami Orange, Grey and Blue and My Ami Peps models also come with a My Ami Play tool for connecting the car to your smartphone. Once connected, you can access features such as sat-nav or internet radio, make calls via Bluetooth, with the smartphone doubling up as an infotainment screen.

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Whichever Ami variant you opt for, you’ll get the same staggered two-seat layout, with the passenger seat set slightly further back than the driver’s. All versions are left-hand drive – having just one version helps to keep the price tag low – but the layout isn’t really a problem on UK roads, because the staggered seating arrangement means that the Ami is just 1,390mm wide.

It’s also only 2,410mm in length, so both occupants sit right at the back of the cabin – it’s a bizarre sensation, as the windscreen feels much further away than it does in a conventional car, while there’s virtually nothing behind you.

There isn’t a boot in the Ami, just some space to fit some shopping bags behind the seats and a large passenger footwell for some odds and ends. It amounts to 63 litres of luggage capacity, so you’ll need to get used to travelling light. Alternatively, find a used version of the old Citroen Ami Cargo, which had a single seat and a city car-rivalling 260 litres of luggage capacity.

Although the Ami Cargo is no longer available, Citroen does offer a Cargo Kit, which is designed to carry shopping bags or whatever you need for a day in the office.

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The Citroen Ami didn’t feature in the latest 2024 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, but with so few moving parts and a simple construction, there isn’t much to go wrong. You won’t even have any problems with the infotainment system – because there isn’t one. If the sat-nav is playing up or the radio isn’t working, blame your smartphone.

As a quadricycle, the Ami isn’t subject to the same crash legislation as other cars, so it doesn’t have a Euro NCAP safety rating. It doesn’t even have the same crash protection or safety kit as other cars, but it’s likely to be safer than tackling the city streets on two wheels.

Citroen Ami alternatives

The Citroen Ami doesn’t have a direct rival, especially now that Renault Twizy has been axed. From a price perspective, it rivals city cars like the Dacia Sandero, Kia Picanto and Hyundai i10, but its most obvious competitor in the electric car segment is the Dacia Spring. Prices start from around £15,000 for an EV that can travel 140 miles on a single charge.