Citroën Revives the 2CV as a €15,000 Electric Concept Bound for 2028

Citroën has pulled the wraps off an electric reinterpretation of its most beloved people’s car, the 2CV, revealing a concept it says will reach showrooms in 2028 with a starting price of roughly €15,000 (just under $17,000). The unveiling came just ahead of the Paris Motor Show, giving the French brand a nostalgic centerpiece for its home-market event.

For much of the 20th century, the original Deux Chevaux — French for “two horses” — was a fixture of European roads. It was cheap, softly sprung and famously slow, yet it sold in the millions during a production run that stretched from the late 1940s until 1990. Its rounded, almost cartoonish cabin, round headlamps, roll-back fabric roof and slide-down windows made it instantly recognizable, and its compliant suspension was engineered so a farmer could cross a rough field with a basket of eggs intact.

The new concept echoes that formula while modernizing the package. The tall, friendly silhouette and the full-length opening fabric roof carry over, and the car is actually about four inches shorter than the original. Citroën is targeting a curb weight near 1,000 kg (roughly 2,205 lbs) — remarkably light for an EV, and lighter than a current Mazda MX-5. Gone, however, are the rear fender skirts, the pop-out side windows and the jaunty cockpit angle; the hood is taller and boxier, and the wheel arches sit much lower, suggesting a car tuned for pavement rather than pastures.

Powertrain details remain undisclosed. Citroën’s lineup brackets the newcomer neatly, though: the tiny Ami makes about 8 hp, while the C3 offers up to 113 hp — a reasonable range for the 2CV to slot into. Battery specifications haven’t been shared either, but comparable small urban EVs typically use around 30 kWh for roughly 250 km (about 150 miles) of range, so something in that neighborhood seems plausible.

Inside, the concept is deliberately spare: a small tablet-style screen on the steering column, a wide driver display across the dash and a removable radio/speaker module on the passenger side. Quirky touches include a central basket nodding to the original’s egg-carrying brief and door pockets molded to hold a half-dozen eggs. Citroën is expected to tone down the more flamboyant design elements for production, but with a 2028 target, the fundamentals are unlikely to shift much. The €15,000 price target is the real headline here — affordability was always the 2CV’s reason for being, and if Citroën can deliver it alongside a dose of the original’s charm, it may have a modern classic on its hands.