Distinctive, comfort-first, feel-good electric supermini offers a 200-mile range for less than £22,000 – so what’s the catch?
MARK TISSHAW @mtisshaw
TESTED 20.5.24, BURGENLAND, AUSTRIA ON SALE NOVEMBER PRICE £21,990 (EST)
For a car that is now entering its fourth generation and has racked up 5.6 million sales over the past 22 years, the Citroën C3 is remarkably short of a noteworthy model in its history. Try Googling the Mk2, in particular, to see if it rings any bells.
The C3 is a bit like the Nissan Micra in that regard: a notable name that has achieved real longevity yet has never been associated with a particularly memorable model.
Perhaps no more, because the C3 badge is at last being used on a car with a real story attached: an EV called the ë-C3 that has a meaningful range of 200 miles and, at less than £22,000, is considerably cheaper than its electric supermini rivals. Could this be a watershed moment in the evolution of the EV?
Key to that cost parity is the fact that the new C3 is underpinned by Stellantis’s new Smart Car platform (no, not that one), which is built according to the same philosophy as one used to underpin ultra-low-cost Citroën models sold in emerging markets such as India and Latin America.
It was created using what is unsympathetically called ‘destructive cost engineering’ – essentially, building an entry-level version of a car that can be scaled up and enhanced, rather than optimising the platform for a more expensive car that can then be stripped back.
It’s built differently, its parts are sourced differently (meaning relationships with suppliers are then different) and it results in a far less complicated car. Indeed, in the case of the C3, there are 30% fewer parts than before.
The Smart Car platform was conceived primarily as one for front-wheel-drive EVs, yet it can also be fitted with combustion engines (like Stellantis’s new STLA family of platforms for larger models).
To that end, the 111bhp ë-C3 is joined by the 99bhp 1.2-litre turbo petrol C3 Puretech with a six-speed manual gearbox (see p23) and the C3 Hybrid, which uses the same engine in conjunction with a dual-clutch automatic gearbox and a 28bhp integrated starter-generator.
It’s the ë-C3 that arrives first. Its 203-mile range comes from a 44kWh lithium-iron-phosphate battery. LFP batteries are typically cheaper to produce than other types, because they don’t need any cobalt, and they tend to be longer-lasting, yet they are in turn heavier
