Coming from the BYD-discussion, I found a list (in German) of 30 >>affordable<< small EVs .
The Citroen e-C3 peeked out due to its price below 25.000€ so I searched and shared an English review for you guys.
Edit: The manufacturer site is a little cumbersome with the language selection:
Rented an EV (in Germany) and got the ë-C3. First time EV’ing, so I clearly don’t know what I’m talking about, but:
- got 200-220km on a full charge (when a bit of motorway was involved
- EVs are clearly not built for speed, but the C3 made it to 134kph indicated (specs say 135, so they’re at least close there)
- handling was cheap-SUV-like
- equipment sparse (like rain-sensor wipers seem to be standard on all (other) cars today)
- hard to judge the size when parking in close quarters and the proximity sensors are (as always) overreacting (though this is probably not a long-term issue)
- roomy in the front at least
- sound system decent
(For a French car, it took us a while to find the cigarette lighter (for charging purposes). Spoiler: it’s in the back)
there is really no other 12v port? Or isn’t there a USB-C PD port?
The 12v port in the back is usually there for an electric cooler
There’s USB-C. I’m a little worried about connecting my phone to a USB-C port I don’t own. Tin foil hattism, I didn’t duck any stars for that.
I believe it’s completely illegal to even touch your phone while stopped at a red light as a driver in France. You even get fined for paying tolls with Apple Pay, so no wonder the socket for the phone charger is out of reach.
Well, small EVs might be capped at 130, especially when they are french (Renault does this, too). After all, all European countries have speed limits, except for Germany.
Yeah - if you’re in Germany for the full electric car Autobahn experience you need to rent a Porsche Taycan.
The review was doing so well until “Citroen is one of Europe’s leading brands for dependability nowadays”.
It may change when the 1st gen EVs reach 10 years but for now the bottom half of this list is still business as usual:
https://car-recalls.eu/reliability/reliability-tuv-report-2025-8-9-years/
MB ML/GLE starting to look like a good next used car according to this list tbh
My car is in ninth place. Though the energy consumption listed is higher than what I have. I get 14 kWh per 100km instead of the listed 15.7 kWh per 100km stated for Opel Corsas.