Citroen C-Zero debuts

Citroen has revealed its electric City Car - the Citroen C-Zero

That Mitsubishi M-iEV certainly gets around. Apart from Mitsubishi’s own version we’ve already had Peugeot’s iON version of the M-iEV electric car and now we get the Citroen C-Zero.

The C-Zero is scheduled to go in to production at the end of 2010 and is another piece in the Citroen puzzle to get its CO2 emissions down across the range. We already know there will be a DS3 and a C3 with the magic 99g/km emissions due next year and there is the DS5 Hybrid in the pipeline and, because the C-Zero will be zero emissions at the point of delivery, this will help Citroen’s range average assuming it sells in big enough numbers.

Just like the M-iEV the C-Zero uses a 47kw electric motor and a 330v lithium ion battery back to drive the Citroen City Car around. Range is said to be around 80 miles and a recharge takes around six hours.If you have access to a 400v connection you can get an 80% quick charge in 30 minutes. It has a top speed of around 80mph and a 0-60mph time of 15 seconds

Citroen is offering a pre-purchase test drive for potential buyers. But will they be buyers or will Citroen only offer the C-Zero on lease? Citroen say they haven’t decide yet what the C-Zero will cost. But in Japan the M-iEV launched this year at around £20k. And that was after subsidies from the Japanese Government, without which the M-iEV would probably have been around £30k.

Still, as a City Car it could make sense. But these price points aren’t exactly going to get people flooding in to buy.

By Cars UK