Explore the Renault 5 (2024): Price, Engines, and Battery - All You Need to Know about the Electric City Car

Renault 5 (2024): Pricing, Engines, and Batteries - A Comprehensive Guide to the Electric City Car

Announced through a concept in January 2021, the Renault 5 electric made its debut at the Geneva Motor Show on February 26. Here's the latest scoop on this neo-retro city car, including its engines, batteries, and chassis, with a starting price of €25,000 (equivalent to approximately $28,500) ... in 2025.

Updated Information as of May 22, 2024

After the Fiat 500 and the Mini, the realm of neo-retro-styled city cars (although Renault prefers not to use the term) is expanding. The upcoming Renault R5 is set to join the club in the fall of 2024. The style of this French compact has been revealed at the Geneva Motor Show. True to the promise made by the brand's top executives, it draws heavily from the concept presented at the Renaulution conference in early 2021. This highly anticipated new model has a strategic significance, aiming to demonstrate that it's possible to offer an electric car manufactured in France at a very affordable price while ushering in the successor to the Zoe, which bids farewell this year.

A Fresh Technical Foundation

Renault has unveiled the underpinnings of its upcoming city car. It debuts on a new platform dedicated to 100% electric vehicles, the CMF-BEV, renamed AmpR Small. These underpinnings will also be adopted by its larger sibling, the R4, with a more rugged and family-oriented positioning, and by the future Nissan Juke. However, for cost reasons, this platform actually shares 70% of its components with the CMF-B used by Renault Clio, Captur, Arkana, or most Dacia models. One notable novelty is a multi-link rear axle... shared with the four-wheel-drive version of the upcoming Duster, a first in the city car segment. This specific rear axle has allowed for maximum space to accommodate the battery pack and enhances the balance between comfort and handling. Renault promises that its city car will "put a smile on the driver's face." It follows in the footsteps of its larger sibling, the Mégane E-Tech Electric, despite its less expensive base. In November, Renault revealed some details about the batteries used. It mentioned a weight reduction of 15 kg compared to the Zoe, with four large modules instead of twelve. The French automaker remains loyal to the nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) chemistry. Despite its higher cost, this chemistry retains the advantage of better energy density compared to the lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) used by the future Citroën ë-C3 or the entry-level Volkswagen ID.2/ID. Polo. Two capacities are on offer: 40 kWh and 52 kWh, providing up to 400 km of range for this Renault 5. The top-of-the-line versions even feature Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology, allowing the battery's energy to be fed back into the domestic grid. This energy could then be sold during peak consumption periods.