This Citroen EV Is The ‘Object’ You Can Drive Without A Licence

Citroen has designed a pod-like concept that could replace both bicycles and buses in urban centres, and you don’t need any qualifications to use it
This Citroen EV Is The ‘Object’ You Can Drive Without A Licence

It has a steering wheel, but Citroen’s Ami One concept isn’t exactly driving as we know it. It’s the smartphone-centric product of Citroen’s latest gaze into its crystal ball.

Built primarily as electric last-mile transport that very obviously beats the sweaty cycling and crowded public transport options, it’s accessible through a suite of portals that let you buy time with it, from five minutes to five years.

Not like cheap bus seats. Nope, definitely not
Not like cheap bus seats. Nope, definitely not

The mostly symmetrical design of the mere 2.5-metre pod includes a rear-hinged ‘suicide’ driver’s door with a conventional passenger door. It means just one set of parts need to be manufactured. There’s a small steering wheel and a basic boot for your briefcase, gym bag or even a couple of weekend cases for that short escape to Rome.

It’s no powerhouse in the drivetrain department, with a top speed of just 28mph and a fairly meagre range of 62 miles. That should still allow the Ami One concept to hum around a city on numerous shuttle runs before needing to park for some electro-juice, and Citroen envisages a whole fleet of them in operation at once.

This Citroen EV Is The ‘Object’ You Can Drive Without A Licence

Interestingly, Citroen claims this 425kg ‘car’ could be driven by 16-year-olds with no driving licence. There’s no mention of automation, either, so the concept really would be under the control of unqualified people potentially just feet away from pedestrians. Hmmm.

It projects its user interface through the driver’s smartphone. You step in and place it in a wireless charging bay, from where its apps and myriad connected systems are projected onto a panel in the driver’s field of vision like a head-up display. You’ll be able to use, for example, Google Maps or Waze for navigation, plus loads more.

This Citroen EV Is The ‘Object’ You Can Drive Without A Licence

There’s a five-inch screen that acts as the instrument cluster, not that there’s a lot of vehicle data to report back. Speed is about your lot, but there are indicator lights on there as well. Weirdly, the screen will show “stylised eyes” with the aim of conveying things like warnings. Call us old-fashioned, but we still believe drivers should be looking at road hazards, not eyes on a screen.

Large windows mean the interior should feel more spacious than it is. Upholstery inspired by hard-wearing outdoor furniture trims the two seats. The driver’s moves on rails but the passenger’s is fixed to save costs. Within one of the seats is a neat ‘safety box’ with a hi-vis yellow vest and warning triangle. They’d be stolen inside the first week, we reckon.

This Citroen EV Is The ‘Object’ You Can Drive Without A Licence

Citroen has also planned an entire line of Ami One-related lifestyle accessories, presumably hoping that urbanites will fall head-over-heels in love with the cute little pod and want to buy a matching Bluetooth speaker, keyring, charging cable or a 1:43 scale model of the car. We have to admit the Litogami-made origami solar-powered miniature car is pretty cool, though.

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Comments

Sword_Az™

That’s actually pretty cool…although i prefer a much “cleaner” design, it’d still be pretty cool to own one 👍🏻

02/19/2019 - 10:34 |
46 | 2
Twopoint0

You can .. question is .. do you want to?

02/19/2019 - 11:06 |
4 | 0

Lol

02/19/2019 - 12:34 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

Cool

02/19/2019 - 11:35 |
4 | 0
UnknownCat13

Completely pointless. Making a super environmentally friendly car ONLY for city use negates the point, because using an item that weighs 425kg to transport a human weighing around 70, isn’t economical as a concept. If you actually wanted to ‘save the planet’ and are too lazy to cycle, get an electric bike. The fact you can only use this in cities defeats the point of the car.

02/19/2019 - 11:36 |
40 | 2

Totally agree. The bicycle is still by far the most energy-efficient human transport method because it weighs considerably less than the person it’s transporting, and instead of four tyres that are at least 100mm wide touching the road, you only have two very narrow ones.

02/19/2019 - 11:56 |
32 | 2

Rain, snow?

Also no, Rimac, VW, BMW and many have agreed, future won’t have any personal cars. These city only cars will be used when you request a drive from Uber for example, they will calculate what kind of car you need and send it to you. There is no point in having a 1000km range if the customer needs a 15 km drive. Hauling the batteries and extra seats wastes energy

Like it or not, owning a car is stupid. Your daily sits in a garage 90% of time and costs half of your house.

Ofcourse I’m not talking about now or 10 years from now. I’m talking about 2050, when most people won’t know how to drive and autonomous cars take over.

02/19/2019 - 12:40 |
6 | 0
Anonymous

Uh oh . . I feel like we are gonna have some chavs driving around in those and crashing in stuff maybe..

02/19/2019 - 12:08 |
4 | 2
MeBoosta

“so the concept really would be under tge control of unqualified people potentially just a feet away from pedestrians.”

HMMM.

02/19/2019 - 12:10 |
12 | 0
HinaXOX

Okaaaaay

02/19/2019 - 12:34 |
0 | 0
RodriguezRacer456 (Aventador SV) (Lambo Squad)

I rather take the bus

02/19/2019 - 13:26 |
2 | 2

I’d rather have that than take the fcking bus.

Anything is better than the fcking bus.

02/21/2019 - 14:50 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

This is really stupid, if its mixed in with “normal” traffic it will reach its top speed of 28mph, whereas a lot of roads will still be 30mph, this will be extremely frustrating for the “normal” driver… Its not like a scooter where you can mod it to take off the restrictions.

02/19/2019 - 14:50 |
4 | 0
RWB Dude

“Object” is probably the best way to describe this lol

02/19/2019 - 15:14 |
2 | 0