French automobile company Citroen designs an electric vehicle inspired by Bollore's Bluesummer vehicle and a dune buggy. The 1960 funky vehicle known as the Mehari will now have an electric version known as the e-Mehari.
During the 1960s, French car company Citroen had designed an open-roofed funky ride that was made for fun known as the Mehari. The vehicle was a soft of a crossover between a dune buggy and a Mini Moke. The vehicle was a do-anything, go-anywhere kind of vehicle that owners could leave out in rainy days if they wanted to.
But Citroen has decided that what the world needs in a fight to trim down carbon emissions is to update the Mehari into an electric vehicle. Inspired by Bollore's convertible Bluesummer, the electric Mehari has top speeds of up to 68 miles per hour and a range of more or less 100 miles. The electric motor used by the electric vehicle is rated at a maximum of 50 kilowatts and a 30 kilowatt-hour battery made up of lithium-metal-polymer.
The Bollore Industrial Holding Group has been leading the use of polymer metal batteries. These battery packs have no liquid inside it unlike the orthodox lithium-ion batteries. Removing the liquid substance from the battery packs means that it cannot overheat or burst out that could cause fire.
The electric Mehari will be assembled at the Citroen-Peugeot manufacturing plant located in Paris, the same plant where the Bluesummer convertible was built. The EV is said to be delivered in France by May 2016. After the release in France, it is expected that the e-Mehari will be available to the European region by the end of 2016.
The e-Mehari is said to have a price tag of around $25,000, but there is no information if the Citroen EV will make it to the Pacific or North America. However, Bollore states about the possibility of selling its vehicles in the United States if there is a market for Bollore's vehicles. Currently, the Bluesummer cars are being used by a car-sharing service in Indianapolis known as BlueIndy.
