>As they face mounting competition from Chinese manufacturers, Citroen and other European brands are exploiting their heritage as a means of selling modern motors
Heritage and vintage looks of the EU car industry, will only take you so far. Working class people still choose best bang/range for the buck car since their car is a tool, not a fashion statement bag.
Those who treat their car as a fashion accessory are few and the fad of such a retro model wears off quickly when too many people end up with them making them uncool again, like the VW did with the new beetle.
I was thinking about this last night - the European car industry's ripe for disruption by a nimble car company that can make really basic EVs with none of the pointless, excessive cruft that seems endemic in every new car release.
It's only Dacia who seems to understand that there's big market for basic but half-decent cars that don't bill themselves as infotainment fourth spaces, or whatever the hell it is that they're trying to go for [1].
Give me wind up windows, give me an analogue dashboard, give me a basic interface for my phone, etc.
[1] ok, we know what they're going for - the Euros in our wallets... .
I'm a bit of a stuck record on this, but quite a lot of the tech is either legally mandated or a EURO NCAP requirement. You can try marketing a barebones car which doesn't have a 5 rating on NCAP and see how that goes.
I do think Renault/Dacia have ""got it"" all of a sudden and started actually trying with EVs. Stellantis less so, although Citroen are a Stellantis company. Even Toyota, whose CEO is an overt petrolhead who feels sorry for the loss of engines, are suddenly doing well despite naming their car bz4x in an effort to make it unmemorable.
The war(s) are only going to accelerate this progress.
I rented a basic Fiat sedan recently in east Europe with a tiny (6-7cms maybe ?) screen for a backup camera that can barely be seen in daylight and a 1990s era type OS that had maybe three functions and never needed to be used. All the lane warning and wheel shaking nonsense (who the hell thought that shaking the steering wheel at speed is a good idea) are controlled by clear buttons on or around the wheel/dash. The car to be honest was not great, because it was very cheaply put together, but the controls were heaven compared to most of the new offerings. İt can be done.
I'd be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
"Infotainment" functions in that require interacting with a touch screen were bad ideas at the time and seem incomprehensibly bad in retrospect. It's a certainty that people have died in accidents that occurred because of this.
On the other hand, backup cameras are a genuinely helpful tool. And so are electric power windows: it's far easier to roll windows up and down pushing a button than manipulating the roller. It takes less concentration, so you can focus more on driving. In 2026, the cost of adding motors instead of a hand crank to control the windows has got to be negligible.
There are other improvements that were luxuries in traditional ICE vehicles, but become necessities in hybrid or electric vehicles. Hybrids like Priuses have CVE transmissions, so there's no manual transmission or stick shift. Electric vehicles have electric seat warmers and even steering wheel warmers because there's no gas-burning engine to heat the cabin.
The Prius-style Toyota hybrid transmissions are actually much simpler than in an ordinary car. The planetary gear system allows engine RPM to be decoupled from the wheel rotation, with the motor/generator taking up the slack. There is no clutch or changing gear ratio.
Once I fully grokked how the Toyota hybrid transmission worked it kind of blew my mind.
It’s so simple, but so adaptable, and far simpler than any other transmission I’ve seen in a car.
And you can get "All Wheel Drive" for low cost by adding another electric motor to drive the other axle.
"You can try marketing a barebones car which doesn't have a 5 rating on NCAP and see how that goes."
Dacia did, and their CEO said they would let customers decide - which they did in droves, to his benefit, despite scoring three stars or fewer.
The newest Dacia Spring has one star.
NCAP lost its way years ago when it diluted its ratings from just crash testing into including "safety assistance" software.
A car which tells you when you're about to reverse into the path of another car is safer. I don't really know what to tell you. It's obviously safer.
Sure, but that's a different kind of safety than _crash_ safety.
Plenty of people (rightly or wrongly) are confident in their ability to prevent accidents. Or, at least, confident enough to be skeptical of the tradeoffs involved with these assistive systems.
If I had to choose between a car that has high survivability in a crash versus a car that how worse survivability in a crash but has a few assistive systems that can prevent some crashes (which, mostly, I already prevent by paying attention), I'd choose the former every time.
> Sure, but that's a different kind of safety than _crash_ safety.
It literally is not. Both are crash safety systems, active and passive, respectively. The active category also includes things like ABS and ESP.
> (which, mostly, I already prevent by paying attention)
This is an extremely well researched area (car crashes cause trillions in dollars of damages annually and therefore get a lot of attention) and not to the support of your stance.
Yeah, those sensors are great (and, incidentally, even the budget model of the Dacia Sandero has them).
The ones that are less great are the attention sensors they mandated in last-year's models. I test-drove a Kia EV3 a couple of months back, and they've set that sensor up so that even a brief glance at your instrument cluster can ring the attention chime...
The problem was that European manufacturers sought to market EVs as a "premium product" because they make no noise, accelerate quickly, produce no fumes and the lack of vibrations.
That idea almost sank the entire industry because the Chinese were undercutting them left and right. And unlike the U.S. Europe still hasn't closed off its markets to Chinese EVs.
What people want most of all is a cheap and reliable car.
> The problem was that European manufacturers sought to market EVs as a "premium product"
Tesla came up with that strategy, executed well on it, and is top of the European BEV market. Despite Musk's subsequent antics.
I don't think the European manufacturers really wanted to do BEVs in the first place, which is why so many were anemic until recently. This is finally changing even though VW are desperately lobbying against the competition. The VW EVs are adequate despite the mis-design reliance on screens (which they are correcting) and pricing (nobody ever bought German cars for their low prices, except the Beetle). Renault have a hit on their hands with the 5.
It's fine for EVs to exist on a market segment curve like regular cars. So long as they deliver value at each level. This is different in the US and Europe, yes, but the real problem has been a combination of lack of seriousness and the general malaise that forced all the legacy manufacturers into Stellantis in the first place. I wonder if there has been an equivalent of the Nokia "burning platform" memo which has made people in the industry realize that, yes, the transition away from petrol engines is now happening and they need to adapt properly.
(edit: I have just been reading up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_de_Meo vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Ghosn and think the Renault turnaround can be attributed to the old CEO being arrested and replaced by someone actually trying to do a decent job)
Ghosn (the previous CEO) is widely credited with turning around Nissan. Some people figure he was actually too successful and his legal troubles in Japan were an extension of the boardroom fight he had with the old guard at Nissan.
Also, the world's first mass market EV, the Nissan Leaf, was spearheaded by Ghosn. Obviously Nissan completely squandered the first mover advantage, but that was no longer under his watch.
Tesla is a premium product because they had first-mover advantage.
But VW is merely a manufacturer of cattle-class vehicles. They saw BEVs as an opportunity to "grow" the base price of their best selling vehicle (VW Golf) to $50K. They were just misguided to believe that buyers would accept that.
Fortunately they've seen the error in their ways and are now releasing cheaper vehicles.
I personally think the VW ID designs are excellent, save for their price. They're just too darn expensive.
BEVs will eventually be (much) cheaper than ICE cars since they have almost no moving parts compared to the latter. We tend to forget that ICE cars are mechanically very complex machines which only work so well because manufacturers had more than 130 years to refine and perfect them.
> They're just too darn expensive.
Well yeah, that's the problem for most people, things being expensive. It would be nice if we could all afford Bentleys or at least top end Volvo EVs with all the safety features and long range.
But VW ID is not a luxury car, not even a premium car brand, it's a working class brand, and even that one it's too expensive for that.
VW lost the plot on what their customers can afford since the VW Golf days and are now moving to the wealthy urban yuppies segment of buyers.
I have an ID.3 - I'd not buy it again.
Nice to drive sure, but software is TERRIBLE (like embarrassingly bad, even years and years after release and endless OTAs) both in the car and app. And the dashboard is all touch sensitive nonsense where they've cheaped out in places that really really really cause annoyances - e.g. to control the rear windows, you have to press a touch sensitive "rear" thing and then you can use the same two window buttons that normally operate the front buttons - wtf?! There is no backlight on the touch sensitive heating controls so you can't change them at night without just flapping your hand around etc. There are no rear speakers, no alloy wheels, drum brakes, no reversing camera, hell there is even visible exterior paint panels around the window where they didn't put a bit of fabric like every other car.
The ID3 is a very very basic and badly implemented car as a daily driver. Take it in to VW to fix the faults on the warranty and you always have to pay a diagnosis fee for them to even look at it because that's not covered. Hateful contempt for the user/owner/driver.
I understand they have made some updates in the newest model, but certainly the OTA updates have not prevented the software problems so you'll probably still have those even if you are wowed by having physical buttons for demisting the windows or unlocking the doors.
>nobody ever bought German cars for their low prices, except the Beetle
Huh? VW Golf cars were hugely popular in Europe for being low price and sturdy. Not every German car was a Mercedes or a BMW. But now even the Golf equivalent, the ID, is too expensive for a vast majority of Europeans.
VW moved itself as the premium brand of the group and relegated Seat and Especially Skoda as the cheaper brands.
The Golf was a “premium” supermini since the 90s certainly.
VW got a majority stake in Auto Union (later Audi) in 1966, and the Audi 50 was launched in the 70s. The Audi 50 was rebadged as the VW Polo, and by the 90es, Audi was the luxury brand. Why would you then label the VW Golf the premium supermini at that time? They had a dedicated brand for premium.
We just got a rental Tiguan eHybrid. It's so big I can't park it anywhere without wasting my time, the high turning angle is annoying compared to my Suzuki, the controls are a hallmark of bad ergonomics and the driving experience is a let down even compared to a Toyota Yaris. I would never pay upwards from 36k euros for such an underwhelming car, when I could get a Corolla hatchback for 26k. The latter is boring, but it offers a seamless driving experience and okay controls.
They marketed EVs as a premium product because of battery cost and availability.
You couldn't build a cheap EV with a decent amount of range and make a profit, and car companies literally couldn't give away EVs with only 50 miles of range. So they stuffed 2-300 miles worth of battery packs into a car, added a bunch of cheap electronics with huge margins and sold the cars for a lot of money to people with a lot of money. Then they realized they could just to that to ICE cars and make a lot more per car.
Meanwhile, China focused on building battery factories instead of cars and now has a lead in both cost and numbers of batteries produced, and can undercut everyone else on the most expensive part of an EV.
> The problem was that European manufacturers sought to market EVs as a "premium product" because they make no noise, accelerate quickly, produce no fumes and the lack of vibrations.
There’s a few lower-end EVs around here, from the Zoé to the Ami (it’s a funny one, but they are not that rare, probably what I would get if I really wanted a daily car). More recently, the Renault 4/5 seems to be doing ok.
There’s a bunch of mid-range hybrids as well, mostly Toyotas it seems.
> Ami (it’s a funny one, but they are not that rare, probably what I would get if I really wanted a daily car)
As someone who uses their Ami every day: it's too under-specced for me to recommend it (for example, no AC is tough in the summer), and it's cheaply made, but man, it's the best car I've every owned.
The Ami has AWCO (All Windows Can Open)
EVs are marketed as premium because the cost much, much more than ICE vehicles. Or at least did/do today. The logic is this: you make a car with a very expensive battery in it. It now costs 1.5/2X the cost of the same size ICE vehicle. Nobody will buy it. But if you add some bells and whistles that have high margin, you can now make a luxury EV that only costs 1.2X as much as the equivalent ICE vehicle. Government tax incentives close the gap further.
This concept is supposedly aimed at the new "E-car" regulations in Europe that means (from what I can tell) that while they still have to retain the same standards of physical crash safety (airbags, crumple zones and all that etc) but don't need to have all the other things like AEB, road-sign detection, lane departure assistance etc which apparently push the price up many thousands somehow for some software and a few sensors.
False. M1E means type approvals will be valid for ten years instead of requiring compliance to changing / updating rules and requirements on a roughly biennial schedule. The requirements will be the same as the current M1 requirements. You can just sell an outdated/unsafer car for way longer without investing into changes and R&D.
Yeah, the safety features aren’t _bad_, though. If you want to go 75mph and not die (or kill others), that’s the cost. You don’t need the next 2 tons and the infotainment system, but 500kg at 70 ain’t safe.
>Yeah, the safety features aren’t _bad_, though.
In theory yes, nobody opposes more safety, but in practice some new digital electronic safety features range from destructive and annoying do downright dangerous and surveillance dystopian which is why people are looking more towards physical safety at crash results rather than the checkbox safety that's purely theoretical on driver aids.
Yeah, always the problem with tech - a camera is a useful tool and also an opportunity for a parasite to watch over your shoulder, a display is a place for presenting information and also an opportunity for a parasite to influence your behavior. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
I didn't mean the technical safety requirements - presumaby those create a somewhat level playing field as all manufacturers would be required to include them for the EU market - I simply mean all the luxe crap that every car seems to insist upon.
Every car review vid I watch on YouTube has me shaking my head at the sheer excess they seem to have.
It's actually customers who insist on the lux crap. If that were not there, they would be looking at a spartan but very expensive car, vs a spartan but cheap ICE car, and they would always buy the ICE version.
>It's actually customers who insist on the lux crap.
Pretty much. Consumers are suckers for luxury, or just cheap tat that gives off the impression of luxury (touch screens, computers, gizmos, etc)
Ironically, computers and screens were a real luxury in expensive cars 20+ years ago when computers were large, expensive and bulky, but now that they're cheap comodities, they make most cars look and feel cheap as the actually luxury cars moved away from them to more discrete and vintage designs that try to hide screens and tech as much as possible.
> It's actually customers who insist on the lux crap
I don't know that we can say that with any surety - when is the last time a manufacturer offered a "no-frills" SKU with all the safety features intact?
Literally the only brand I can think of which does this is Dacia, and they sell like hotcakes in the EU...
>the European car industry's ripe for disruption by a nimble car company that can make really basic EVs with none of the pointless, excessive cruft that seems endemic in every new car release
Thats where China comes in. The EU makers enjoyed decades of protections from disruption and laziness and compliance settled in because they didn't want to get disrupted.
You are pretty much describing the Renault 4/5. They still carry a big screen but everything vital can be controlled by buttons and switches around the wheel.
This is exactly what Slate Auto[1] say they'll do in the US. Unfortunately for me, their initial models are a truck and an SUV. I'm crossing my fingers they'll succeed, then make an econobox for me.
[1]: https://www.slate.auto/
Yeah, I really like Slate's ethos, but I'm in exactly the same boat as you!
Dacia is a brand of Renault, same as Skoda is a brand of the Volkswagen Group - both are attempts of offering more affordable cars built in Eastern Europe (which is especially ironic in the case of VW, which translates to "people's car").
And the only electric Dacia so far is a badge-engineered Chinese-built car: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacia_Spring - but, according to Wikipedia, the second generation will be built in Europe starting in 2027.
>the second generation will be built in Europe starting in 2027
I'd rather more they'd be "designed in EU" as well, as that's the most complex and highest value add of a product's margins. That's why iPhones, are "Designed in California and Made in China". Imagine where the US economy would be if they'd be the ones assembling iPhones tha Chinese workers would be designing.
If future EU cars will just be "Designed in China, Assembled in the EU" just to brag about EU manufacturing, then I have very bad news for the EU economy.
Dacia Spring is basically Dongfeng EX1, so it's a Chinese car.
Batteries are expensive. LED light strips and big LCD screens are cheap, sometimes even cheaper than bespoke buttons and switches.
The flashy features are to make the more expensive car seem worth the price. As battery prices fall and the automakers aren't trying to hide an extra $10k worth of baseline costs, you'll see more basic economy-focused EVs.
I'd love an EV with no screen except for the instrument dash and buttons, dials and sliders to operate the A/C and radio.
New Cars must have a backup camera by law. So the screen is mandatory.
A video display for a backup camera is mandatory; an all-encompassing whiz-bang touchscreen glass cockpit is not.
(And yeah, I am very appreciative of the fact that physical buttons, levers, and knobs often cost much more to produce than touchscreen interfaces do.)
You could have the screen and also knobs and buttons. It’s not really that difficult.
Could be integrated into the instrument dash screen.
> with none of the pointless, excessive cruft that seems endemic in every new car release
A lot of that (driver assisting and monitoring systems) are mandated by EU
The BBC article fails to mention that this new 2CV is aiming for the new M1E vehicle category, created especially for small, affordable EVs.
If you want something bigger (than 4200 mm) then the battery will be so expensive anyway that most of the added tech does not change the price considerably. And also forget about the analogue dashboard because we have a billion mandatory digital assistants anyway (I'm not complaining, anything to save lives).
Dacia is fine but dont crash in it, it wont be nice at higher speeds where more premium brands will protect you and your family better. Its not about some adac stara but real world collisions and what happened to occupants.
Same for chinese, recent MG scandal where driver's seat during crash can start continuing original trajectory even if rest of car does not.
I ignore infotainment and electronic crap as much as possible, its pathetic how bad it is still in 2026 across whole industry, beta test at bsst. But real safety I ignore not.
>Dacia is fine but dont crash in it, it wont be nice at higher speeds where more premium brands will protect you and your family better. Its not about some adac stara but real world collisions and what happened to occupants
It's not just Dacia it's all small cheap cars, including the Fiat Panda. Obliviously big expensive cars will have more protection simply for being bigger and heavier with more metal mass.
People who can only afford a dacia won't be able to afford a Model X or Volvo EX60 so it's not like they have a choice.
"heritage" isn't about fashion, Citroen is signaling a specific value proposition and ethos through this choice. And also enough commitment to burn their one throw at this target.
They already went a similar direction with the Ami,it was a pretty bold move and it was met with very decent sales https://www.passionnement-citroen.com/post/citroen-ami-premi...
The Ami is very popular around here. Lots of high-schoolers driving them since they can do it without a (proper) permit.
I'm not a high-schooler, but I love mine and use it almost every day in Paris! It's a great little car, and it's nice to see Citroën follow through with more "serious" small EVs.
Also Renault 5 and Renault 4 seem to be selling quite well.
Yeah I see quite a few of them. The zoe was a good sell and the r5 seems to be on par. And next might be the latest twingo
Ami-style cars are toys for "rich" people. No lower-class or lower middle class person who can only buy one car is going to get it, since its compromises are too great; tiny range, lack of AC, no suburban or highway capability, can't fit a stroller or child seat. That person will inevitably get either something like a C3/C3 Aircross/Clio/Sandero or a Chinese EV like the 20k euro Geely E2 or Aion UT or 16K Leapmotor T03/B10 or 18K Dolphin Surf.
An upper-middle class or "rich" person will get one, as a third car for errands in the historic center (doesn't wanna mingle with the poors on public transit), as a first car for his 16 year old brat (a travesty that law allows it) or a runabout for his wife that has old her car license due to drunk driving.
Agree on the tradeoffs, if a family can have a traditional car and needs to maximize the value of owning it, something like a second hand utility car (a Berlingo for instance) will the best choice.
Now lower-class people have each their own needs, you won't always have space to park a big car, or the money to get a full driver license, or deal with the maintenance and insurance, you might not need to drive the highway more that once every blue moon and can borrow or rent something for these times etc.
Many have either no motored vehicle or a scooter for these needs, I'd zee the Zoe/Ami class of vehicles as a potential step up from that, more than a downgrade from traditional car.
Point taken but I’m pretty sure working class people choose based on initial cost, not bang/range for the buck.
That depends on where you sit in the working class. At the bottom are people who earn almost nothing and price it the only consideration. As you move up though you find people who have some disposable income and start caring about style. At the top end of the working class you find people who can afford a new car (where this is aimed!) and those people tend to care about style.
> and those people tend to care about style.
They also don't typically buy Citroens. French cars were never popular with the wealthy in recent decades.
I think you are wrong, I live in the UK and people around me drive used BMW x5s and Range Rovers both objectively bad vehicles and not best bang for buck.
Car are a fashion statement no matter how much or little wealth you have.
>I think you are wrong, I live in the UK and people around me drive used BMW x5s and Range Rovers both objectively bad vehicles and not best bang for buck.
Because those used cars are cheap to buy for you in the UK, but there are no cheap used 2CVs yet on the market, so the only customers are those with money.
And those people are chasing status, not fashion. Different things.
There is no such thing as a cheap Range Rover / Land Rover. I know because I own the latter.
the people that buy vehicle like that for status will only learn that after getting one.
What was that saying, "there is no car more expensive to own than cheap luxury car?"
It is if you're in the UK. Used cars are (relatively) cheap there.
In the case of Rover, the price you pay for the vehicle is just the initiation fee. You still need to pay regular dues to stay in that club, but they call it "maintenance" and it ain't cheap.
(At least that's how I read OP.)
Correct.
I got my vehicle with an MOT about 2 years ago. Let's just say I've spent another £5000 on a vehicle I paid £10000 for. A good part of that is labour for work I couldn't do myself. Much of this is age-related. I've also been visited by the "Lucas Prince of Darkness" (https://www.mez.co.uk/lucas.html, https://www.hermit.cc/tmc/humor/lucas.htm) on at least two occasions.
My vehicle gets 30 MPG, which is reasonable considering the engine was designed back in the late 80s.
I love driving the things, but anything made by Land Rover is more of a love affair rather than simply a vehicle.
I live in the UK. There is no such thing as a cheap Range Rover or Land Rover. Take it from an owner. If one of those is cheap, it is a basket case.
It is either expensive to buy and then expensive to maintain, or it is cheap to buy and you will be replacing all the parts and spending every weekend wretching, and it will be expensive anyway.
How they are “objectively bad”?
Range Rovers are extremely unreliable, and maybe more importantly, not suited for what they're being used for. Offroad vehicle with poor fuel economy being driven in the city. X5 is more reasonable but still definitely an expensive way to get around.
I was hoping for something more than myths and cliches.
X5 - despite its bad reputation - is actually very reliable nowadays. That B58 engine is one hell of a robust machine. And Range Rovers have 4 to 5 year manufacturer warranties.
Also, they're not off-road vehicles (Wranglers, Defenders and Broncos are); they're family cars that combine practicality with great driving dynamics, advanced tech, and a touch of luxury. Also, both have PHEVs, and now even BEVs variants.
I'm not a SUV guy myself, I know their bad sides - but calling these two models "objectively bad" is both ignorant, and patronising. Objectively (as in: let's take a bunch of cars and compare them to each other) they're two of the best ones out there.
This is what I've been told for years, and still the prejudice against Range Rovers has proven better than the "facts." There's no objective way to say what's unreliable, I'll agree there.
And even if this all magically changed in the past couple of years, the old reputation applies to all the ones people bought before, going back to the other person's original point that a large number of people buy cars based on looks. Also the ones that aren't off-roaders are a niche in their lineup.
They’re usually around the bottom of the reliability rankings.
> Car are a fashion statement no matter how much or little wealth you have.
Often it isn't a fashion statement, and often people just like that particular car. Some people like Fords, Volvos, Vauxhalls or whatever. They just happen to like them for whatever reason.
I happen to like old Land Rovers because I like driving one. I like the look of them as well, but it isn't a fashion statement. People do come up to me and ask me about my vehicle (because it is still mostly original), but a lot of the time it is curiosity.
I think you're mistaking status for fashion.
Status and fashion are intrinsically linked.
people have Luis vuiton branded stuff because it was a status brand. It was a status brand because it was exclusive. it was exclusive because it was expensive.
BMWs used to be exclusive, only executives would drive them. THey were expensive, so were only given to execs (if it was a company car) or bought because execs had more cash (generally)
If there ever was a time when a BMW 700 was presented to an executive as symbol of their status, then that was also the time for them to start looking for a new gig.
If I read you correctly, you are both arguing with me and in my favour.
The two are inexorably related
Not really. There's quite a few luxury brands for (actual) rich people out there that you can't tell because they're super discrete and can't notice unless you know what to look for and look super close, because they don't have large gaudy logos plastered everywhere to attract looks and envy from the peasants. Those are aren't chasing status looks because they have actual status. LV handbags are for poor people to signal they can fake status by being bad with money.
I think you're mistaken
potato potato
Meanwhile, at least Dutch roads are full of Renault 5 electrics (https://www.renault.nl/elektrische-autos/r5-e-tech-electric....) and FIAT 500's (https://www.fiat.nl/modellen/fiat-500-hybrid).
I agree that vanity cars that are a shitty car that looks like a classic serve little value. However good cars that "interpolate" and reinterpret classics can be absolutely fine; the originals did become classics for a reason.
The Renault 5 looks great and has a solid price point for entry. I was this was available in the US. I think it would do quite well here at the < 30k price point.
I see the R5 electric everywhere in Belgium as well, and I still love how it looks despite its ubiquity.
A small hatchback no longer fits my life, but otherwise I would have loved to drive an R5.
I hope they make some "hot hatch" EVs in the future, the Alpine A290 is more like an expensive lukewarm hatch.
Selling Renault 5 in actual colours is smart, everyone notices them against the sea of grey.
Those cars are also just very practical for a lot of people. It's not a family car, but not everyone needs a family car. Afaik they are so popular because they can be leased relatively cheaply.
The same CEO was ultimately responsible for both those cars.
The success of the Fiat 500 and new Mini renders the GP comment completely moot.
There must be the equivalent for "first as a tragedy then as a comedy" saying for commercial product. "first as a tool then as a totem" or something like that.
> Heritage and vintage looks, will only take you so far.
Amen. A, in this case rather ugly, restyling of a wheeled smartphone is not something I have an interest in. That's why you need the people that work on designing and signing-off (on) the thing understand what made the original such an oustanding design in the first place.
Citroen is already the Stellantis' equivalent of Skoda niche for Volkswagen.
Skoda are doing great with the Elroq at #2, just behind the Model Y: https://cleantechnica.com/2026/10/03/europe-ev-sales-report-...
Stellantis do seem to sandbag their EVs a bit with batteries that don't quiiiite have as much range as competitors. When my Abarth 600E eventually arrives I am going to annoy HN with even more EV-posting.
Yeah. I drive a modern Stellantis EV and it's quite evident that this is an afterthought retrofitted onto a ICE/hybrid platform. The battery is not that huge, but more importantly all the EV-specific features you'd expect are either missing entirely or really crappy. Charging speed is severely limited, there is no vehicle-to-load, barely anything in terms of charging settings and also no trip planning (I'm told this is available as a paid add-on in some models). By default, the screen behind the steering wheel uses the majority of its space to visualize which energy source is currently in use - maybe nice in a hybrid, but profoundly useless in a pure EV. And of course, there is no frunk. Instead, the space under the hood is occupied by the centralized electric motor as well as the supplementary car parts arranged in a way clearly meant to accommodate a much larger combustion drivetrain, all covered in big plastic panels to conceal the empty space (or maybe the fact that it's an EV at all).
Not to bash it too much, it is an okay car that gets you where you want to go, but it's clearly not them doing their best job at making an EV. I actually like that they have physical, tactile interfaces such as buttons, levers and knobs for all the really important features. I'm not saying they should go the Tesla route and replace all that with a big touchscreen in the center column.
>I drive a modern Stellantis EV
You could have stopped right there. Stellantis are trash tier of cars. Race to the bottom of cost cutting, quality and relatability with former reputable badges on top, to drive the sales.
I highly doubt those numbers, Leapmotor sells a lot of T03 and Bs and it's not even in the rankings.
I feel like the Mustang has been able to go pretty far on heritage and vintage looks.