2 weeks Ago By Brendan McAleer
Article content Currently, Toyota’s been making waves, teasing off a trio of new EV bound for the Euro market, and hinting that a new electric pickup truck is on the way. But along with these big battery pack people haulers, a little wee-EV is set to join the crowd: the tiny two-seater FT-Me . Equipped with a solar panel to boost range – Toyota claims around 100 km – the FT-Me is technically a concept, but it’s aimed right at a very real market.
In Europe, the quadricycle segment fills an important mobility niche for low-speed transportation in places where public transit has a blind spot. With horsepower limited to no more than 8 hp and 45 km/h top speed cap, these Lilliputian machines can be piloted by drivers as young as 14 in some countries, and provide inexpensive transportation for those who aren’t using the motorways. Small cars are in the minority these days, with Ford having retired both the Focus and Fiesta, and the likes of the Mazda 2 and Nissan Micra long gone from showrooms.
That’s a shame, as there’s something charming about about the Minimum Viable Car concept: not one more feature or horsepower than you actually need. While Canada may now be a land more of Toyota RAV4s than scrappy little Honda Civics , small cars are still a big deal around the world. Here’s a look at all the small things.
Citroën Ami Ami means friend, and there are few friendlier machines on the road than this little French Bulldog of an EV. Launched in 2020 into France’s quadricycle market, it’s been quite successful, offering a stripped down motoring experience for getting around urban areas. Mechanically, the Ami gets a 5.
5kWh lithium-ion battery pack, with a single 8 hp electric motor driving the front wheels and about 75 km of range. Being a Citroën, it does of course have some unusual quirks, including asymmetrical doors – the passenger door is rear-hinged and the driver’s door front-hinged. Everything’s designed to be as inexpensive to manufacture as possible.
One valuable lesson that the Ami might have for manufacturers looking to keep costs down is the way it harnesses smartphone tech to handle infotainment duties. Rather than having dedicated screens, it simply pairs with the smartphone that most users already have, and uses that screen for controls. Fiat Topolino Mechanically identical to the Ami underneath, the Topolino takes the retro charm of an original Fiat 500, and applies it to this most basic of cars.
By comparison to the 500e you can currently buy at Fiat showrooms in Canada, the Topolino is positively devoid of amenities, nothing but plastic and cost-cutting. But so too was the Cinquecento of the 1950s, where Fiat was so desperate to keep costs down it cut open the roof to save on sheetmetal. The Topolino may be leaning heavily on its retro-look charms to mask a bare bones experience, but if you think of it as basically the four-wheeled version of a Vespa scooter, then it has its appeal.
Although, with a price tag of the equivalent of $15,000 before rebates, this might be the kind of thing you rent on a Roman Holiday, not buy. Renault Twizy No longer in production, the Twizy deserves a mention as an early EV quadricycle success, and one that (barely) made it to North American roads. With a two seat tandem layout and open sides, this quadricycle is really more four-wheel motorcycle than car, but Renault experimented with multiple trims and marketing ideas over the course of this car’s life.
One of the more interesting was a concept where buyers bought the car but leased the battery pack. The potential expense of battery pack replacement crops up as one reason new buyers shy away from EV ownership, and though actual replacements are uncommon, leasing might be a way to ease these concerns. Initially, the Twizy came with the same restrictions as the Ami and Topolino, but there was a faster version that could hit 80 km/h.
In a form that can actually keep up with modern traffic, the Twizy is enormous fun-to-drive despite modest acceleration, in the same way scooters are. One was brought over to B.C.
as a benchmark for the Electrameccanica Solo project (more on that in a bit), and it was able to handle Vancouver side streets with ease. Mobilize Duo Renault’s follow-up to the Twizy is the Duo, and it’s a bit more substantial than the Citroën and Fiat. The seating is again in tandem, but the car now has full doors, ones that open upwards Lamborghini scissor-style.
Again, there will be two levels offered, one that conforms to the 8 hp quadricycle rules, and a more powerful Duo 80 that has 21 hp and a top speed of 80 km/h. This latter is not quite quick enough for Canadian highways, but there’s a delivery variant called the Bento that’s a bit interesting. Being so small and unusual makes the Mobilize Duo something of a rolling billboard, so delivering French pastries or whatnot might be an interesting use case.
Even in winter conditions, the Duo 80 is rated for around 100 km of EV range, which would make it a useful city runabout. Ark Zero As famously demonstrated by Top Gear ‘s Jeremy Clarkson driving a Peel P50 through an office, the U.K.
has a long tradition of building extremely tiny cars. (And did you know Canada got the only export market Peel P50s ever made? There were only two made, and they differed from the U.K.
cars as they had rudimentary heaters.) Ark is a London-based startup and the Zero is its first product, cheaper than the Ami by almost 50%. It’s claimed to have enough space for two people and a dog, has a range of 80 km and only 3 hp.
That’s very slow, but on the rainy, traffic-clogged streets of London, the easy to park Zero might be a great year-round transportation solution. Electrameccanica Solo Canada’s only contribution to the microcar market, the three-wheeled Solo, is currently on hiatus. Based roughly on the Corbin Sparrow, the Solo wasn’t something you’d consider driving through the Rockies, but compared to the rest of the cars on this list, it did offer genuine real-world performance that could keep up with highway traffic.
With 56 hp and over 100 lb-ft of torque, the Solo had a top speed of around 130 km/h, and a projected range of 160 km. For a single commuter, the ability to use lanes open to EVs and high-occupancy vehicles, it might have worked as an ideal second car for a household. Several businesses also used the cargo version for advertising and deliveries.
However, the cost of the batteries drove prices up into the range where a regular compact car made more sense. Solo is currently working on a follow-up vehicle called the SoloGT, to be manufactured in Spain and aimed at the European market. Still, there are a few B.
C.-built examples floating around Vancouver, examples of when the Canadian automotive sector dreamed big and thought small. Sign up for our newsletter Blind-Spot Monitor and follow our social channels on X , Tiktok and LinkedIn to stay up to date on the latest automotive news, reviews, car culture, and vehicle shopping advice.
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