Car enthusiast or not, there is one thing all of us can agree on. In metropolitan cities, driving is no longer as fulfilling as it once was.
In a city with enough congestion, most of the fuel one fills is vaporised when the car is at a standstill or crawling through traffic. Seemed like a waste of the depleting precious resource. In one of these miserable moments is when the thought occurred to me ‘why not use an electric car to go to work?’. Citroen very kindly loaned us the eC3 for a while and here is how that experiment went.
The eC3 is identical to its ICE counterpart and at a glance, there is very little to set it apart as an electric car. Essentially, it is a compact hatchback that is very quiet and never needs to visit a petrol pump.
The current crop of ICE cars that are available for the price of an eC3 are quite refined but in the cabin of the eC3, there is literally no noise or vibration. While I appreciate the exhaust note and vibrations of an ICE car on long drives, I realized I could live without it during my time with the Citroen. The in-cabin experience was better.
Plus, when the lights went green, nothing shoots off the line like an electric car. That was actually all the drama I got to experience in town because of the low average speed in cities. However, it did draw my attention to the fact that Eco mode was more than enough for such duties.
During a range test in purely Eco mode, I got a range of 165 km and that was good enough for a week’s commute. Sure, planning is a huge part of the EV experience but once used to it, the convenience it offers is amazing. My apartment building does not have a charging facility, so I got by using the charger at the office which did limit my driving over the weekend when the office was closed. Other than that, life with the eC3 was nothing short of peaceful.
