Citroën’s New EV

French automaker Citroën has developed a wonderful battery electric vehicle, targeting the European market, initially Holland, the UK, and Germany.  Its MSRP in the UK is about $25,500 USD, which sounds quite attractive, given its modern styling, fabulous accouterments, and considerable range.

Ok, but why not the U.S.?  Educated Americans have a profound respect for France, its art, architecture, wine/cuisine, its general joie de vivre, but French automaking has never really worked for us.  French cars have never done well in the States.

A few decades ago, we had various models of Renaults and Peugeots, neither of which captured any great deal of market share.  Of course, before that, we had the Citroën itself, but Americans found the name hard to pronounce with its dreaded “r,” didn’t like the colors, like this deep chartreuse, and found the exterior design was so bizarre that it may have left us with a permanent emotional scar.