Citroën ë-C3 Aircross: the Citroën that Dacia wants – Preview

Highlights

• Successor C3 Aircross

• Electric and possibly as a seven-seater

• Promises to be relatively cheap

Citroën will emphatically not be the budget brand within Stellantis. No Dacia-like status for Citroën, CEO Thierry Koskas reminded us during the presentation of the electric ë-C3. Yet for the time being, Stellantis seems to be donning the Dacia suit in the EV world. The ë-C3 has been presented with a starting price of around €24,000 and later an entry-level version will even appear that will cost around twenty grand. This puts the ë-C3 clearly in the Dacia Spring’s waters. It is now available from €21,750 and is significantly smaller than the ë-C3. Furthermore, the ë-C3 has a range of up to 320 kilometers, while the little Romanian gets 230 kilometers from its battery at best. Dacia has no other EV in its range besides the Spring, and therefore no larger EV, but Citroën will soon. This will be the successor to the C3 Aircross and if it follows the same concept as the ë-C3, it promises to be a car that Dacia wishes it had.

Third new label?

During the presentation of the electric Citroën ë-C3, the brand gave a glimpse of what else it has in store. “The ë-C3 is the beginning of Citroën’s renewal, the beginning of a new family. That includes an SUV in the B-segment,” said CEO Koskas, after which he conjured up shadowy fragments of that new crossover on the screen. That ‘SUV in the B-segment’ can only be one car: the successor to the current C3 Aircross. After all, the C3 Aircross has been around for almost seven years and shares its technology – just like the Opel Crossland – with the previous generation of Peugeot 2008. We deliberately do not mention the newcomer by name, because Citroën also does not seem to have completely figured it out yet. what the model will be called. If Citroën abandons the Aircross addition, it would be the third time that the brand has chosen a new label for its wider alternative to the (ë-)C3. The predecessor of the current C3 Aircross, which will be retired next year, was still known as the C3 Picasso.

Citroën ë-C3 Aircross (Illustration: Larson).

ë-C3 recipe

Thanks to the design details that Citroën’s top executive has already announced, we already know what the successor to the ë-C3 Aircross will look like. The well-known Citroën ë-C3 is very similar to the car of the same name that Citroën sells in India, among others. Visually, the ë-C3 differs mainly from the front from its brother intended for growth markets, although Citroën maintains at all times that the cars have nothing to do with each other. What seems? Judging from the fragments that the brand released of its new electric crossover, the successor to the C3 Aircross will soon also look very similar to a model we already know. Indeed, also from India. There – and in South America – a completely new C3 Aircross was recently launched. In any case, the silhouette of ‘our’ C3 Aircross successor and that of the new Citroën intended for growth markets appear identical. We asked our digital drawing master kindly, but firmly, to pour the ë-C3 sauce over that C3 Aircross. The result of the virtual tinkering provides a fairly accurate picture of Citroën’s electric space wonder.

Growth spurt

Compared to the current C3 Aircross, its successor appears to have grown considerably in size. The still brand new ‘growth market C3-Aircross’, with its length of 4.32 meters, is a good fifteen centimeters longer than the outgoing European model. It has seven centimeters more between the front and rear wheels. The car has those extra centimeters in India and South America for good reason, because it is available there as a five- and as a seven-seater. If the electric crossover that comes to Europe also becomes a seven-seater, Citroën will soon have a fairly unique model in its hands. After all, you can easily pay more than €55,000 for other electric seven-seaters and the French newcomer seems to be losing tens of thousands of euros.

We wouldn’t be surprised if the electric ë-C3 ‘Aircross’ largely borrows its powertrains from the ë-C3. In any case, it is already available with a 113 hp electric motor, although the 136 hp or 156 hp strong one that you know from, for example, the e-208, e-2008 and ë-C4 would certainly not hurt the crossover. Count on an electric range of about 300 kilometers, but that’s still a guess. Regardless of what the new electric Citroën treats its owners to in 2024: with its down-to-earth, much-for-little attitude, Dutch success seems guaranteed. Just look at how well Dacia is doing in our country.