Opinion: Australia needs electric microcars like the Fiat Topolino

A recent trip to Europe highlighted a glaring deficiency in our own automotive landscape.

Quadricycles, those four-wheeled microcars, are often the perfect conveyance for a lot of people, certainly around Europe’s congested cities and tight roads.

Increasingly electric, quadricycles constitute a nice solution for many – albeit not all – motorists, whose mobility needs stretch to whizzing from home, to work, school or generally within the confines of their neighbourhood and surrounding suburbs.

Easy to park, easy to manoeuvre and navigate around the cramped confines of inner urban enclaves, quadricycles are essentially four-wheeled vehicles with power outputs ranging from 4kW to 15kW and with a limited top speed of 45km/h.

In Europe, they are generally classified in the same category as mopeds, motorcycles and tricycles and in most jurisdictions can be driven by anyone over the age of 16 holding an appropriate licence that would also allow them to ride a moped.

Some jurisdictions go even further, such as France, where anyone over the age of 14 can drive a quadricycle as long as they complete an eight-hour driving course taken at an accredited driving school. What a refreshing attitude.

Australia takes a different approach to these four-wheeled microcars, our stringent design rules (ADR) around safety ensuring they cannot be registered locally. Which is a bit of a shame.

Imagine an Australia where the recently-revealed Fiat Topolino electric vehicle was available? Or its twin under-the-skin Citroen Ami? Or the less conventional-looking Renault Twizy.

All three offer electric mobility and seating for two and driving ranges typically around 75-90km. Now, I concede that’s not a huge range, but I’d venture, for a lot of urban-dwelling singles and couples it’s also perfectly adequate.

The reality is, there are plenty of us out there who don’t need more than two seats, and who have little need to hit our motorways and highways. Currently, however, those of us within that niche demographic, usually buy vehicles that far exceed our daily needs, if we’re being honest with ourselves. Personally, I don’t need an SUV, not even a small one. I don’t even need a hatchback with seating for five. A two-seater electric car, such as the Fiat Topolino, with 90km of range would suit most of my motoring needs just fine.

And that would mean an affordable, emissions-free vehicle that can be parked in even the tightest of parking spaces.

Now, before you fire up the angry keys, I get that our wide-open country is vastly different to Europe. I get that our ADR regulations around vehicle design and safety are there to protect us.

But we have no qualms about letting an ever-expanding range of unregistered electric bicycles and scooters (in some states) on our roads, piloted by unlicensed riders. Electric bikes in particular, can often exceed speeds of 60km/h and we’re quite happy to let them share our roadways without regulatory oversight.

Remember, quadricycles are limited to 45km/h which, while slow on paper, is in line with our traffic flow in built-up areas where signposted speed limits are usually between 40-50km/h.

And then there’s the pricing. It’s difficult to predict how much these cheap and cheerful electric vehicles would cost in Australia. But taking the Citroen Ami as example, its priced at €8390 in France, or around $AU13,700. Even taking into account shipping, any import fees and the like, it’s hard not to imagine the Ami costing less than $20,000 on the road in Australia.

And in a market where exactly two cars are priced under that threshold – the Kia Picanto and MG3 – the prospect of an urban-focused electric vehicle coming in significantly under that mark is enticing.

Personally, I’d rather be driving a Fiat Topolino or Citroen Ami in our congested inner urban environments than riding a bicycle, even an electric one, and certainly ahead of an electric scooter. They just make a lot of sense. And I suspect, they would make a lot of sense for other people too.

How about you? Would an electric microcar make sense for your motoring needs? Let us know in the comments below.