Citroen Ami Tonic is new range-topping version of Europe’s cheapest EV

Citroen Ami - an unexpected success story, a designer’s practical joke that turned into an international hotseller. With 23,000 orders on the books, Citroen is struggling to keep up with the production and is forced to limit the markets where Ami is available - for now.

Nothing but a glorified golf buggy with some lights thrown in, symmetrical design all around to lower the costs as far as possible, one color only with some personalized accents and rock bottom price turned out to be the recipe for success.

For now, Citroen Ami is available in 9 markets with France being the biggest with 13,300 orders so far. Italy follows in 2nd place with 6,700 orders and Spain shares third place with Belgium with nearly 800 orders each. Portugal closes the official race with nearly 500 orders.

Every market Ami launches in, it surprises Citroen with sales numbers. In Turkey when the car launched, the first 50 units available were sold in just 25 minutes. With 400 orders now in place, deliveries began last month.

Morocco and Greece are slightly different - most buyers were businesses with main customers being postal services, Portugal ordered 160 units for its CTT postal distribution group. The best story comes from Greece though, there on the island of Halki, best known for its green credentials, Citroen Ami is used by Police and Coast Guard. If that isn’t a statement of confidence then I don’t know what is.

The UK is a new market for this smallest and cheapest French EV. There are no official sales figures yet, since the car only launched in June but in the run up to the car going on sale, Citroen racked up over 2,000 pre-orders.

Now the UK is getting a spicier version of Ami - My Ami Tonic starting at GBP 8,695 which is just over €10,000 or $10,000. For the extra cash you get new headlight bezels, apparently inspired by sunglasses and the wheels come with khaki accents. There are some khaki colored accents on the side of the car with splashes of yellow thrown in to brighten up the mood.

The interior gets its own share of yellow and khaki accents - the door pulls and hooks are yellow, dashboard storage bins come in khaki. There is an additional phone cradle, there are extra door nets, floor mats and the car comes with the phone connector to link it to the My Citroen App.

There is no change in the minuscule power department - same 5.5 kWh battery with a 6 kW electric motor, same top speed of 28 mph (45 kph) and the same 46 miles of range (74 km). This by no means is anything more than a city car but it has proven to be very successful so far and it will surprise us many more times. We had a closer look at Ami and you can read our report here.

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