Will the electric car ever become more fun ? This is the wish expressed by Vincent Cobée, CEO of Citroën, who adds that it should also be “lighter and smaller“.
In an interview given to our British colleagues from the Autocar website, Vincent Cobée notes that car designers are placing more and more importance on the search for perfect aerodynamics on electric vehicles.
According to Vincent Cobée, “the transition to electric vehicles will massively increase the importance of aerodynamics“. He explains that today, if a thermal car is not aerodynamic, it is not a concern. You just have to increase the size of the fuel tank and “as long as your purchasing power does not take into account the price of gasoline, which is the case for 30 to 50% of the population, why worry about it?“. For the electric vehicle, “anything tall or square will have immediate negative effects for range“. The GMC Hummer EV is the perfect example. Which could augur, according to the CEO of Citroën, the eventual disappearance of the SUV genre, massive and heavy.
Vincent Cobée, Managing Director of Citroën. © Citroen
Vincent Cobée thinks that the end of the SUV could come sooner than we think, in particular because of the new taxes penalizing “heavier and larger vehicles“. The manager is convinced “that there will be some form of regulation, directive or incentive to reduce the weight and size of batteries“. Remember that in France, the ecological bonus is set at 27% of the acquisition cost within the limit of €5,000 provided that the electric vehicle costs less than €47,000 and that its weight does not exceed 2.4 tons.
Which means SUVs are at risk of “suffer massively“if we start to consider electric vehicles weighing less than two tonnes with 60 or 70 kWh batteries, specifies Vincent Cobée. For these reasons, the CEO of Citroën is convinced that car manufacturers will rather seek “to design cars that are lower and have more dynamic lines, rather than reducing the kilograms of bulky SUVs“.
Indeed, according to Vincent Cobée “reducing the weight by 50 kg will have almost zero impact“: it is better in his eyes to improve”aerodynamics or powertrain efficiency” of which “the impact on autonomy will be very, very rapid“Nevertheless, the real challenge will be to”reduce weight at lower cost“, from the design, adds the general manager of Citroën.
The recent concept car Citroën Oli (pronounced go), an electric SUV resembling a… Hummer is proof that you can save weight by using recycled and sustainable materials. Thus, the roof and the trunk are made of recycled corrugated cardboard with a honeycomb structure, all reinforced with fiberglass and covered with resin. The roof can easily support the weight of an adult without bending, a feat that we owe to the chemist BASF. Result, the Oli displays 1000 kg on the scale, while generally this type of electric SUV easily exceeds 1200 kg. On the other hand, we are very far from the dynamic design praised by Vincent Cobée.
This reflection around an efficient electric vehicle is not new. In October 2022, the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe) published a study in which it advocates for electric city cars whose battery capacity would be less than 60 kWh.
Ademe estimates that the carbon impact of an electric city car during its entire life cycle is 2 to 3 times lower than an equivalent thermal vehicle, “provided that its battery is of reasonable capacity” (> 60 kWh). On the other hand, “with a larger battery, the environmental benefit is not guaranteed given the variability of consumption linked to the mass of the vehicle and the conditions of use“. Without being directly named, electric SUVs are – once again – in the sights.