2026 Renault Twingo E-Tech | PH Review
Smaller, lighter, cheaper - has Renault gone one better with its city car follow-up to the R5?
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. That’s apparently the thinking behind Renault’s decision to utilise its Chinese connections during the development of its new Twingo E-Tech. Thanks in part to a collaboration with its ACDC colleagues - as in Advanced China Development Centre, not the Aussie rock band - the wide-eyed newcomer hasn’t just broken Renault records by going from idea to completion in just 100 weeks, it’s also on course to be a European-built electric car capable of beating alternatives from the People’s Republic on practicality, range and price. Because at ‘comfortably under’ £20,000, the Twingo could very well undercut a BYD model that offers less space and less range. That, as you'll likely have noticed, doesn’t normally happen.
This is nothing like what Mercedes has done via its Smart-based collaboration with Geely either, where Smart products are openly presented as part-Chinese creations. While the processes behind its development have been powered by Chinese tech innovation, the new Twingo was designed in Paris, uses a large proportion of European parts and is fully assembled in Slovenia. That, Renault anticipates, will be within 1,000km of 75 per cent of Twingo customers, which is a big plus for those wanting to buy more ‘locally’ than the BYD Dolphin Surf, the Twingo’s rival from five thousand miles away. For those buying European, it’s set to be a cheaper alternative to the Fiat 500e, Citroen e-C3 and incoming VW ID.1.
But who’re we kidding? Most potential Twingo buyers will be drawn primarily to its looks. Given how well the Renault 5 has gone down, especially in Britain (12,000 sales and counting), this could very well be a sure-fire winner with supermini fans. It arguably does at least as good a job of evolving its predecessor’s design, albeit as a car that’s 37cm longer than the original. But at 3.79 metres from bumper to bumper, the 2026 (or 2027 for us Brits; more on that later) Twingo is 13cm shorter than an R5. By today’s standards, it’s definitely small.
And yet, when finished in the more vibrant of six paint shades, yellow, red or green, the Twingo has a heck of a lot of road presence. The number of thumbs up, waves and smartphones directed at our yellow car’s nose during its Ibiza launch were testament enough of that. No doubt you’ll have already decided whether it’s the cutest thing to hit roads this century or not, but on the Techno trim’s 18-inch wheels - which are two-inches bigger than the 16s on EU base-spec Evolutions - this Twingo appears to turn heads, whether they’re eight or eighty.
It’s not short on standard spec either. Those cute-eyed LEDs on the nose come as standard, and they, like the moustache fake grille between them, are inspired by the original’s nose. The same is also true for three grilles on the upper left side of the bonnet, which - while being totally fake - are where the washer filler cap can be accessed via a special key that doesn’t require you to open the bonnet. On the side, there’s a frameless window line above curvaceous body lines, and at the back, more LED lighting is accompanied by a Mk1-inspired window line and ‘Twingo’ in '90s-style typography.
The designers have clearly had some fun with the car, yet the aerodynamicists haven’t been shut out; the black plastic surround on the rear window is there to extend the car’s length and boost its aerodynamic profile. Even those devil horns on the rear lights are aero pieces, there to guide air down the back and make the car slipperier. Clearly this is a car intended to be driven at city speeds, but it’s also not just another blob on a soulless skateboard platform. There’s even a bit of negative camber on those front wheels…
Things are slightly less clear-cut inside, because while the design is (to this writer’s eyes at least) brilliant, there are some visible areas of cost-cutting. The vibe is spot on for a city runaround taking its inspiration from the '90s, with the exterior colour carried onto plastic pieces on the dash and door cards, and the digital illustrations on the infotainment system match it too. In our yellow car, this means solid black and grey plastics, some of which are visibly made using recycled materials, are accented by a vibrant, glossy shade. The carpets feature vibrant patterns and even the A-pillars and roof lining are wrapped in a bright cream fabric, with embossing in the roof.
While some scratchier plastics are to be expected in an EV at this price point, the exposed screw heads in the door (each door has one just behind the electric window switches) do stray beyond retro. Even my 22-year-old Clio 182 came with little clips to cover the screws it has in the same spots. But Renault execs assure us that wherever cost has been saved, it’s been reinvested somewhere else in the car, and to be fair, it’s easy to get comfortable on those patterned fabric seats. You get a fair degree of manual adjustment both on the rails and vertically, so you can sit lower than expected with the fully adjustable wheel set just right. It’s a much better seating position than the high seat you get in a BYD, let me tell you that.
Better still, there are buttons. Actual buttons. This isn’t a given at this price point because, as evidenced by the number of white goods on wheels that are all screens inside, digital buttons are a cheaper option than manual controls these days. Certainly, I’d take a few exposed screw heads over a touch-sensitive heater control, and while the Twingo’s climate control is single zone, it has temperature and fan speed knobs proudly located on the dash. There are buttons for cruise control and media stuff on the wheel, and Renault’s industry-leading (my words, not theirs) ADAS-off button sits neatly on the left-hand side of the dash. Ergonomically, it’s all spot on.
I love the big, red hazard lights button, which is a copy of the Mk1’s, and even the familiar Renault card key gets a colour-matching backside with more '90s graphics. Digitally it’s all pretty good too. The infotainment is Google-powered so you get ‘built in’ Google Maps, and it’s all quick and intuitive stuff, with funky graphics and even a car illustration that matches the spec and colour of your Twingo. Other brands can claim a bigger digital instrument cluster, but none in this segment have such fun graphics. This setup adds to the vibe. The only modern bit of tech really lacking from the front is wireless phone charging.
Access to the back is surprisingly easy; it’s still a four-seater, but with individually sliding rear chairs, which can move forward and back 17cm like the Mk1’s one-piece bench. My five-foot-eleven frame fits comfortably in the back. Alright, the top of my head grazes the roof lining if I lean back onto the headrests, but the fact my toes fit under the seat ahead even when it’s set as low as it can go is seriously impressive for a 2.49-metre wheelbase car with a battery in the floor. Even compared with modern petrol hatchbacks, the space in the Twingo is genuinely impressive.
Admittedly, the boot does take a hit if you have those seats all the way back, but not by much. 260 litres of room is plenty for the average couple’s weekly food shop, and you can always slide one seat fully forward if there are three passengers aboard. If you’ve got small kids, or indeed nobody in the back seats, moving both seats forward adds another 100 litres of boot space, and there’s even 50 more under the floor, which is plenty big enough to hide away the charge cables. Just like the original Twingo, this new one’s a Mary Poppins’ handbag of packaging.
That rear space is aided by the fact the Twingo, which shares the RGEV platform and its front axle setup with the Renault 5, uses a rear subframe suspension setup that’s been pinched from the Captur. It makes for a 7kg saving compared to the R5’s multi-link setup, and when combined with a battery pack of just 27.5kWh (usable), it ensures that the Twingo is light for an EV. Few would raise an eyebrow at the prospect of a 1.2-tonne petrol-powered five-door with screens and modern safety hardware aboard, so for Renault to have achieved this with a battery-electric Twingo is genuinely impressive.
It does wonders for the car’s ride. Even on the 18s, the Twingo deals with speed humps, cracks and potholes well, with squidge in the suspension but also solid control, meaning compared with floatier rivals (which at this price point often ride softly, but compromise on body control), the Twingo is more fun to drive. It’s keen on the nose, with light and direct steering, and while 82hp means it takes 12.1 seconds to get to 62mph, it’s not short on mechanical entertainment, with the apparently quite hard Continental EcoContacts offering a few scuffs of wheelspin if you floor it out of junctions. Put it this way: you can drive this Twingo like the hire car its forebear so often was.
Carry speed into a bend without transferring the weight and the Twingo will respond with a hint of safety understeer, before keenly changing direction. But it only takes an abruptly lifted accelerator or a dab of brakes to get the tail wagging into a corner. Few other cars in this class - certainly not since the Mk2 Renaultsport Twingo 133 - have been this fun on the open road. Of course, the city is this car’s home turf, and there its tight turning circle, nippy off-the-line performance (0-31mph in 3.85 seconds), and the smiles you’ll receive through the windscreen all make the Twingo a jolly place to be.
It’s relaxing too because the Twingo’s steering wheel-mounted regenerative braking paddles don’t just allow you to raise and lower the system’s effects on the fly, they also allow you to ramp it right up to a full one-pedal mode without taking your hands off the wheel. The full one-pedal mode is so strong that it blends actual braking and regen to bring the car to a complete stop, holding it there until you touch the accelerator again. It means your workload in traffic is reduced to just small angle adjustments of your right foot, making this E-Tech hatch the most effortless urban car of the class.
The same cannot be said for motorway driving, because while not all bad, wind and road noise are noticeably higher than you’d experience in an R5. Plus, with a top speed of just 81mph, there’s the small issue of anticipated range, which even on a warm day in Ibiza, falls well short of the car’s claimed 163 miles. My admittedly ‘enthusiastic’ mixed stint behind the wheel delivered between 4 and 4.5 miles/kWh, which is decent but only equates to about 110-120 miles of real-world range. Those hoping the car’s cleverly packaged lithium-iron phosphate battery could work miracles may be disappointed to hear that.
Not even Renault is pretending its new Twingo is a car capable of handling main vehicle duties. It’s clearly being marketed as an urban vehicle for, at most, very young families. It's easier to imagine a resident of Ibiza whizzing around an island that’s just 25 miles in length with this as their sole source of transport - but for Brits, this will either be a town car, a second car or, if you’re lucky, a first car. In those roles, this new Twingo is absolutely brilliant.
It’s therefore a bit of a shame that right-hand drive cars won’t reach production until early 2027, thanks largely to the lack of space in Renault’s 100-week ADCD schedule to get the left-hook version over the line. But when the Twingo E-Tech does finally arrive on these shores, there's a fair chance its manufacturer will have another well-priced winner on its hands. As the most fun car of this class by some margin, it might just be the first ACDC hit not to herald from Australia. Some credit is owed to China, clearly - but the High Voltage acclaim will be all Renault's.
SPECIFICATION | RENAULT TWINGO E-TECH
Engine: Permanent magnet synchronous electric motor
Transmission: Single-speed, front-wheel drive
Power (hp): 82
Torque (lb ft): 129
0-62mph: 12.1 secs
Top speed: 81mph
Weight: 1,200kg
Battery: 400V lithium iron phosphate, 27.5kWh capacity
Efficiency/range: 5.1miles/kWh, 163 miles
Max DC charging: 50kW; 10-80% charge in 30mins (V2L capable)
Price: TBC (‘comfortably under’ £20,000)
Many locals in Ibiza live in apartments in the main towns but public EV charging is woeful on the island at the moment. So a place where this car should be ideal not many people will be able to practically run it.
I realise it's chicken and egg but ironically this car which should be buzzing around every Mediterranean island and southern European city will actually work better in the UK at the moment where far more people have their own charging and the public infrastructure is actually much better.
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