Skoda Citigo i-EV

HELLO £22,815 OTR/£23,595 as tested/£285pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

Does an EV have to be pricey to be good?

DRIVER

Tom Harrison

THE MORE OR LESS IDENTICAL VW UP, SEAT MII AND SKODA CITIGO have been around since 2011, and we’ve rated them since day dot. In the early days only the Up got the option of electric propulsion, but now they all do. In fact with the Mii and Citigo it’s e-power or nowt, which makes them their respective manufacturers’ first ever EVs.

Happily things have moved on since the earliest circa 2013 e-Ups. They were vastly expensive relative to a normal Up, Mii or Citigo and wouldn’t even do 90 miles on a charge. The new-gen cars have double the battery capacity and almost double the range.

We’re talking 36.8kWh of lithium-ion battery mounted under the floor and between 140 and 170 miles of range. An 80 per cent recharge apparently takes almost 13 hours on a normal three-pin household plug, or a little more than four hours on a 7kW wallbox.

The e-Up and Mii Electric come in just the one trim costing around £20k (after the £3,000 govt grant). But with the Citigo E-iV you get a choice – either a kitted-out SE L like ours, whose spec largely mirrors the Up and Mii and costs about the same, or a bare-bones SE. Either way, there are few cheaper ways of getting into a new EV in Britain.

This year is unquestionably the year of the mini EV. Spend a bit more money and you don’t necessarily get more range, but you do get an arguably cooler, techier product. For example, the Citigo’s specs and price compare favourably with the Mini Electric and Honda E, but it’s nothing like as flashy. Then there’s the long-range Renault Zoe, plus the bigger Peugeot e-208 and Vauxhall Corsa-e to think about. And we mustn’t forget the new Fiat 500. Competition is fierce, to say the least. Over the next few months we’ll be seeing how the Citigo stacks up.