Unless you care not a jot about cars, it is highly likely you’ve seen the new Renault 5, online even if not in the metal. I think most people have by now, given the general buzz around its arrival.
What intrigues me most about the 5 is the way people are reacting to it. Not just people who might be considering an affordable, compact, five-door EV, but people who have been uncertain about electric cars, and even those who are dedicated car enthusiasts.
Think about that for a minute. The Renault 5 is an affordable (by today's standards) electric car, which a starting price of £23,000. Even if you go for the big battery and style bits it's still comfortably under £30,000. It’s not drastically fast, and it’s not got performance aspirations beyond just being well sorted and rather fun to drive (for the fast version, you want to look to the Alpine A290).
But what’s remarkable is that I’ve had people who are normally preoccupied with whether to order a Porsche 911 GT3 RS or a Cayman GT4 for their collection, asking me about the Renault 5 and whether they should get one. Not because they need it, but because they want it.
I’ve had every other variety of buyer commenting on how they’d consider it, or are considering it, too. Chiefly, the response to the Renault 5 from just about any remotely interested party is ‘I want one’.
The only other small, affordable cars I can think of that have had a similar impact are the original, modern era BMW MINI hatchback and Fiat 500. Both retro-inspired and achingly well designed. Which is probably a big clue as to why the Renault 5 has struck such a chord given that it is, er, retro-inspired and achingly well designed.
It all comes down to the way it looks, doesn’t it? People aren’t frothing about the 5 because it’s got great damper control and a surprising amount of boot space, although that’s a factor. It’s because this well-priced electric car will make you feel good about yourself, will make your friends jealous, and will turn heads.
As any designer will tell you – achieving those head-turning attributes in a supercar is easy, as you’ve got the budget and the freedom to give it flying buttresses, jutting air-intakes, huge spoilers and all the usual ‘look at me, I’ve got a fast car!’ stuff. But making a volume-production small car with a profit margin, and that has people wasting time on the configurator – well, that’s much harder. In fact, achieving it is rather special.
It all got me to pondering whether the Renault 5 might be the first truly aspirational electric car. There have been other more expensive EVs worth lusting after, obviously. The Porsche Taycan, the BMW i5, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N – I’d even say that the standard Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5 had a real aura of desirability about them when they first came out. I also thought that the Honda e was fabulously designed and actually rather desirable, but the short driving range put a stop to its success. The BMW i3, too, I personally find really cool.
