This is my wife and our "cheap electric car".
Without any car for a year, we wanted a small electric car. Second hand or new? How long range do we need? What price are we ready to pay? We sold our Tesla Model S a year earlier, after we owned it from new, for 5 years while living in Hong Kong. From that experience, we were quite spoiled. Having moved to Switzerland, we almost exclusively used public transport for a year (and the odd car rental). We really only needed a small car which is easy to park, and with medium range. But we were also very reluctant to go back to fossil fuel cars, even a hybrid - no thank you. But a Tesla was a bit overkill for us. We finally stumbled upon the VW group mini-triplets, the VW e-UP, Seat Mii and Skoda CitiGo e iV. All the same cars basically, in a different wrapping. We managed to find a direct import car, at about the third of the price of a Tesla Model 3 - the Skoda CitiGo e iV!
Less than 21k CHF (about the same in USD). WLTP range 259 km. 5 years factory warranty / 100,000 km, with up to 8 years / 160,000 km on the battery pack itself. 7.5 kW AC charging, 40 kW CCS fast DC charging (well, "up to" 40 kW, more about that later). Without too many expectations about this car, we were in for a very positive surprise. So much so that it wasn't long after we got it that I exclaimed that I love this car so much that I need to tell other people about it. I will post about our experience with this car in the following blog posts. Next: CitiGo part 2: A Prelude