THE GEAR FACTOR
Our Rating: 7.3 / 10
An automatic gearbox in a small urban van makes sense on paper but how about in the real world? Steve Walker looks at the Citroen Nemo SensoDrive
The Citroen Nemo with the SensoDrive gearbox is more economical than the manual model, it’s easier to use around town and it doesn’t cost too much more. Automatic vans aren’t commonplace on our roads but models like this could well change all that.
If there was ever a van ideally suited to an automatic gearbox, the Citroen Nemo is it. The little Citroen is a highly specialised sort designed to operate in busy urban areas where picking a path through the traffic can be hell in anything even remotely large or unwieldy. It’s the kind of environment where the van driver can be on and off the clutch like he’s trying to inflate a bouncy castle with a foot pump but a good automatic gearbox has the potential to eliminate all that effort at a stroke. But can it do more? Citroen reckons that if you specific your Nemo with its clever SensoDrive transmission, then the answer is yes.
The Nemo is yet another Citroen van built in partnership with Peugeot and Fiat. Peugeot’s version is called the Bipper which, for us, instantly puts it at a competitive disadvantage and the Fiat model is rather more elegantly dubbed the Fiorino. Along with its cousins, the Nemo is a highly significant vehicle in that it plugs a gap between the established compact van sector (think Citroen Berlingo van) and smaller supermini-derived vans (think Vauxhall Corsavan), an area where few other products dare to tread. We could call it a sub-compact van if you like, but the point is that it’s small, mobile and nimble enough to excel in congested urban areas when carrying a big load isn’t necessary but it remains large enough to be of day to day use. In this kind of role, the SensoDrive automatic gearbox would appear to make very good sense.
The SensoDrive ‘box is mated to the Nemo’s 1.4-litre HDi diesel engine. It’s an automated manual gearbox with a mechanical clutch taking care of the shifting on command and negating the need for a clutch pedal. The idea behind it is that operators get the two-pedal driving benefits of a proper automatic with the economy of a conventional manual. The system works well too. It can be operated in fully automatic mode or prompted to change gear manually with the stubby dash-mounted lever. If you adopt a relaxed driving style and are relatively gentle with the throttle, progress is smooth. The 1.4-litre engine develops 70bhp which doesn’t sound a whole lot but 160Nm from 1,750rpm means it has the low-end muscle that drivers like for getting their payload smartly off the line. The Nemo isn’t earth-shatteringly quick but the chance to approach the speed limit has become a rare luxury in the areas where it’s designed to work, so that shouldn’t unduly matter.
The Nemo has independent front suspension braced with an anti-roll bar, while at the rear is the old commercial vehicle standard transverse beam. The set-up works well helping to give the Nemo the lively and energetic feel on the road that the latest supersized Berlingo has partially lost. The downside is that the Nemo is less comfortable a proposition on the open road, but around town its short overhangs and teeny dimensions make it highly manoeuvrable. The turning circle is super-tight at under 10 metres kerb to kerb.
There’s little doubt that the Citroen Nemo SensoDrive does what it sets out to do in making the lot of drivers in urban areas that little bit easier. Whether enough van drivers get the chance to have their lives made a bit easier, however, will depend on whether the Nemo SensoDrive can persuade the people who hold the company purse strings. It gets off to a promising start by actually consuming less fuel than a 1.4 HDi Nemo with the five-speed manual gearbox. On the combined cycle, the SensoDrive model
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