Retro Electric City Cars
These small wonders are electrifying.
OVER THE PAST few years, you might have noticed a trend in the automotive world. Electric cars are big news and anything powered by electrons are hot property. Of course, part of that reason might be tightening emissions regulations and the hefty financial penalties associated with them. At any rate, just about every carmaker has at least one electric car in its line-up. But one more trend that’s been emerging is for carmakers to debut small electric cars, specifically, ones that are made for driving in cities. Even more specifically, electric city cars that are made in the image of iconic city cars of years past. Of course, there’s the Mini Electric (www.mini.sg), but Minis aren’t exactly news. What we’re referring to is the
Carmakers are debuting small electric cars, specifically, ones that are made for driving in cities.
(revived again) Fiat 500 (www.fiat.com), Honda e (www.honda.com) and the upcoming Renault 5 (www.renault.com), if that last one ever makes it out of the development phase.
As for why anyone should opt for a city car, that answer should be fairly obvious since most people around the world live in cities and it could also be a part of manufacturers’ larger push toward car-sharing services because apparently millennials don’t want to own things (though that could more accurately be worded as millennials don’t want to own things because they can’t afford them).
At any rate, what everyone can agree on is nostalgia is good, which is where our electric car trio comes in. The Fiat 500 is Italy’s answer to the original Mini, the Honda e draws heavy inspiration from the first-generation Civic and the Renault 5 revives a nameplate not seen since 1986 when it was replaced by Clio.
Suffice it to say, the electric retro revivals harken back to more innocent times, which is no bad thing when there’s so much doom and gloom going around. Besides, modern interpretations of iconic vehicles, who doesn’t love that?