Credit score the place it’s due, former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn—the person who was later smuggled out of Japan in a double bass case—was fast to determine electrification because the key paradigm shift within the Twenty first-century automotive business. Cue the lovable Renault Zoe, forward-thinking by way of design and propulsion, however maybe too aloof to seize hearts and minds.
The brand new Renault 5 EV is unashamedly nostalgic in look, mining a design development that’s been round so lengthy that retro is sort of retro. But if you see it within the flesh for the primary time resistance is futile. Right here, absolutely, is the electrical automotive that may demolish any lingering preconceptions, a surprisingly refined conduit for all-round feel-good vibes that’s full of big-car tech.
Present Renault boss Luca de Meo is actually bullish. “Some merchandise are magical,” he notes. “You don’t have to carry countless discussions, everyone is all the time in settlement on what must be executed. They usually do it. There’s no inertia.”
Courtesy of Renault
As one of many masterminds of the noughties Fiat 500 revival, De Meo has strong instincts on these things. Even in the event you’d by no means pushed one, you knew what the basic Cinquecento stood for. The identical applies to the Renault 5: It arrived into an early ’70s world during which the Center East was in convulsions, vitality was all of a sudden scarce, and conspicuous consumption was retro. Context issues, and this one has a distressingly acquainted really feel.
Design Winks
The brand new R5 goals to brighten your day through its sweet colours, and an exterior and inside design that prompts an expertly executed Proustian rush. The silhouette could be acquainted, however the brand new automotive has fuller proportions and imaginative postmodern touches galore.
There’s a cheeky little four-corner graphic within the headlights that “winks” as you strategy. The fog-lights under mimic that motif, whereas the vertical taillights are one other echo of the unique. They’re now designed for a level of aerodynamic effectivity that will have boggled the minds of Renault’s engineers again within the day.
The chunky wheel arches recall to mind the mid-engined R5 rally car, and the brand new automotive’s roof might be had in quite a lot of remedies. It’s a five-door automotive however the rear door handles are cleverly hidden away. And the outdated automotive’s hood vent reappears right here as a state-of-charge indicator. Every strip represents 20 p.c of the accessible vitality.
