Citroen has unveiled its latest concept car – an all-electric city SUV named Oli.
The French brand has made a habit of giving its EVs human names, such as the tiny Ami city car.
This concept is part SUV and part pickup truck, which it’s safe to say makes for quite a quirky design.
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Citroen is taking aim at other manufacturers as well, saying: “rather than being a 2500kg ‘palace on wheels’ filled with screens and gadgets, Oli proves that more can be achieved with less.”
You’ve got to love that confidence, don’t you.
To keep the weight down, Citroen has constructed Oli completely out of recycled materials.
The bodywork is made from corrugated cardboard that’s reinforced between fiberglass panels and coated in a polyurethane resin.
It’s the sort of coating you’d find on a loading ramp or parking deck, but not on a car.
Each panel can also support an adult standing on it despite weighing half what a traditional steel panel would.
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Oli features a four-seat cabin, and uses long front doors with hidden rear suicide doors.
The interior is simple and symmetrical to reduce the number of components required.
The dashboard is made of 3D-printed recycled polyurethane, and has slots at each end for a Bluetooth speaker as there’s no traditional audio system.
The seats are also 3D-printed and are upholstered in recycled polyurethane.
Unusually, the windscreen is totally flat, but that allows information to easily be projected up onto it rather than using normal screens.
But of course, the most unusual quirk of its design is that instead of a conventional trunk, it has a pickup truck bed.
It can be left open or enclosed under a roller tonneau cover, and also expands into the cabin if you fold the rear seats down.
Of course, it has plenty of attachment points for accessories or tying cargo to as well.
Finally, the logo has been tweaked to put the typical Citroen chevrons inside a circle.
“We took a risk with Ami, and we are taking a risk with Oli because we need to push creativity for production,” Citroen’s head of design Pierre Leclerq says.
“There’s no sense in proposing cool materials or designs that will never influence future production vehicles.
“That’s why the inclusion of the new logo on Oli is significant because just as you will see elements of its design and technology in future models, the new interpretation of Citroen’s badge will be our welcoming new standard.”
So, while Oli won’t be making it to production, at least some ideas from this utterly quirky concept car will.
