Citroen's quirky, affordable Ami

It takes a little time to figure out some of the new Citroen Ami's quirks. The full-electric vehicle has symmetrical doors. The driver's door is hinged at the rear, the passenger's at the front.

Opening the doors from the outside is no problem because the handles function like on any vehicle. The situation changes drastically once inside the Ami. Each door has an orange cord that is there to pull once inside the car. That cord also used to unlock the door before opening it, which is not intuitive.

Like any car equipped with an automatic transmission, the Ami does not have a gear shift. Instead, it has buttons for drive, neutral and reverse, but they are very difficult to find because they are on the lower left side of the driver's seat base. A raincoat could completely obscure these buttons from view.

These oddities are the result of Citroen's push to make the Ami as simple and affordable as possible. The tiny, boxy electric vehicle is made of fewer than 250 parts, which is about one-tenth as many as a traditional car.