‘Citroen has changed the game and changed the lives of countless consumers’

We keep hearing about game-changing cars – the sort of vehicles born after the global motor industry’s traditional design, engineering and pricing rule books have been torn-up and binned. but do we really get enough of these so-called breakthrough products in car showrooms? and on the rare occasions we do, are they within the financial reach of the motoring masses? No and no, I’m sorry to say.
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Sure, there are plenty of interesting, high-quality, often beautiful variations on hatchback, saloon, SUV and sports car themes. Also, such cars now rely less on fossil fuels, more on electricity. So everything’s good, clever, more efficient, chugging along nicely, thanks.  

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But in terms of radically different mainstream cars designed to play very different roles while being more accessible and affordable, the game really hasn’t changed that much. For volume manufacturers who dominate 90-plus per cent of the global market, the rule books have been tweaked, but hardly torn-up.
As for consumer products that rank as genuine game-changers, I spot them in the healthcare (Covid vaccines, for example) and entertainment (Netflix, etc) sectors, but not so much in car manufacturing.   
Until now. Today, 9 December 2020, will go down in history as the date Citroen changed the game and changed the lives of countless consumers. This, thanks to the global launch of its cheeky, brilliantly designed, North African-built, fully enclosed Citroen Ami – a deliberately modest four-wheel, two-seat electric vehicle promised to cost roughly the same per month as a mobile phone. How’s that for a breakthrough automotive product?