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The original Renault Twingo radically transformed the A segment with its bold new vision of the city car. Cheerful, colourful and modular, Twingo invited customers to “invent the life to go with it”. At that time, the market offered a wide range of city cars, with more arriving every year.
Today, this segment accounts for less than 5% of the European market.
Contrary to popular belief, the current size of the A segment is not a reflection of low demand: motorists across Europe are still looking for compact, affordable vehicles, designed for urban living or for use as a second car. The problem lies in the size of the offering. Faced with the difficulty of reconciling competitive edge, compliance with standards, and modern customer expectations, most manufacturers have simply pulled out of this segment.
Building on its history and expertise in small cars, Renault decided to take up this challenge, and to view it as a major growth opportunity. As a result, new-generation Twingo is a true game changer. It is part of a sweeping transformation, both internally – with the rigour and passion of our workforce, the accelerated pace of development and our competitive production base in Europe – and at market level, where it is redefining the standards of the A segment, as a modern electric city car delivering high customer value at an affordable price.
Bringing the spirit of Twingo to life involved taking the DNA of the original and giving it a unique, contemporary feel. A vehicle of iconic and instantly recognisable design, Twingo E-Tech electric is also exceptionally spacious and modular, with five doors, two independent sliding rear seats standard on all versions, and more.
Built for silent driving with zero tailpipe emissions and cutting-edge technology, Twingo E-Tech electric features driving aids usually found further up the market, and is available with the OpenR Link multimedia system with Google built-in – a first in this segment.
The aim is to make electric cars easier to drive and encourage more people to make the switch. The ideally sized LFP battery (up to 163 miles* WLTP range) is combined with a lively, lightweight 60 kW motor. Twingo E-Tech electric is perfect for driving in and around cities, where the One Pedal function makes light work of day-to-day traffic jams. Finally, competitive pricing remains a priority: Twingo E-Tech electric will launch at under £20,000. Even the top-spec versions will sell for an attractive price.
Even more practical and convenient than before, Twingo E-Tech electric sets new standards for the A segment, while remaining true to the pioneering spirit of Renault and the original Twingo. It meets the expectations of customers across Europe in full, while also bringing an optimistic vibe to the city.
Built at the Novo Mesto plant in Slovenia, Twingo E-Tech electric will launch in 2027.
Two years to reinvent an icon: an adventure unique in Renault's history
From 1992, Twingo established itself as an iconic city car. It was a huge success, selling over 4.1 million units in 25 countries and making its mark on several generations with its innovative one-box design, generous, modular interior space and cheerful character.
Today, Twingo E-Tech electric is beginning a new chapter as a modern reboot, taking the fundamentals of the first generation and adapting them to today’s needs. Consolidating Renault's lead in e-mobility in the city car segment, it combines innovation, driving pleasure and environmental responsibility.
Developed as part of an innovative and unique international organisation, Twingo E-Tech electric expresses the ambition of Renault to bring electric vehicles into the mainstream and make them widely affordable.
Twingo E-Tech electric was designed to meet three major objectives:
Making electric mobility affordable and more sustainable
The European electric car market is changing rapidly, with consumers demanding even more affordable models. Renault is addressing this demand. In 2023, engineers started work on a vehicle with an entry-level price of less than £20,000 (excluding government subsidies).
However, meeting this demand involved more than simply tweaking the price. To design an affordable and competitive electric city car, Renault had to radically rethink its design and production methods. As part of this organisational transformation, underpinned by radical technical choices and the expertise of Ampere, it was able to develop a vehicle with a price tag of under £20,000.
Twingo E-Tech electric features an LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) battery, a first for the Renault Group. This technology takes advantage of abundant and widely available natural resources such as iron and phosphate, while reducing dependence on critical metals such as cobalt and nickel. This strategy is fully in line with Renault's approach to decarbonisation, and its aim of developing electric vehicles that are more sustainable and responsible, without compromising on safety or performance. Moreover, the LFP battery of Twingo E-Tech electric uses a cell-to-pack architecture that allows more cells to be packed into a given space, while also cutting the cost of the battery. Overall, the LFP and cell-to-pack architecture cuts battery costs by around 20%.
This purchasing advantage goes hand-in-hand with lower running costs owing to the extensive work. As a result of the detailed studies conducted on motor efficiency and aerodynamics, making it possible to limit the size and weight of the battery, Twingo E-Tech electric boasts exceptionally low energy consumption. This allows it to compete directly with ICE vehicles in the same class.
From the very first sketches, designers and engineers set out to design a vehicle optimised for urban use with a small footprint. The aim was for the carbon footprint of Twingo E-Tech electric to be 60% smaller than an ICE city car of a similar size. This achievement is based on a global approach, encompassing production and the entire vehicle life cycle.
Cutting vehicle development times to two years
Twingo E-Tech electric is the first vehicle in the “Leap 100” programme (“100” for one hundred weeks), whose purpose is to transform the entire vehicle development cycle. Twingo E-Tech electric was developed faster than any other model in Renault's history. Designed and built in just one hundred weeks – twice as fast as previous electric models – while complying with the most recent Group quality standards. Twingo E-Tech electric illustrates Renault's capacity to keep pace with a fast-changing market.
To achieve this objective, Renault set up a unique organisation, combining know-how in Europe and innovation in China. Based on three pillars – Ampere, ACDC and the Novo Mesto assembly plant – this organisation paves the way for a new generation of vehicles based on a faster, simpler and more efficient design process.
Ampere, the Renault Group subsidiary specialising in intelligent electric vehicles, led the project through its three key stages in France, China, and Slovenia.
The design of the Twingo E-Tech electric was launched in France, at the Technocentre, drawing on the Group's technological strengths and using the AmpR Small platform, specially designed for A- and B- segment electric vehicles with state-of-the-art electronic architecture. For this project, Ampere introduced a streamlined governance structure focusing on efficiency and rapid decision-making. This approach made it possible to clear milestones more quickly, reduce back-and-forth between business lines and ensure complete integration with Renault's electric strategy.
The second phase was carried out with ACDC, the Renault Group R&D centre based in Shanghai. This entity accelerated the project by working with the local ecosystem and new industrial partners. This close interaction facilitated the smooth transfer of best practices. Around one hundred people contributed to the various phases of the project, with the support of key suppliers including Launch Design for the upper, visible part of the vehicle, CATL for the batteries and Shanghai e-drive for the powertrain. Ampere provided the platform and developed all the electronic systems, software, multimedia and driving aids. This joint effort cut the usual design timescales and made it possible to optimise costs without compromising on quality.
Further, Twingo E-Tech electric is built at a Renault Group plant in Europe, guaranteeing quality and reliability. With this new approach, Renault has made the transition from conventional, linear development to a collaborative, cross-functional process, bringing together all the key functions in the same team. This approach has allowed us to cut lead times at every step. Renault has shaved a full year off the design time for a comparable vehicle, while reducing the investments required by half.
By implementing this approach for Twingo E-Tech electric, Ampere was already able to meet the goals of the “Leap 100” programme, showing that this is not a one-off exercise in optimisation, but a new, more sustainable and reproducible way of working. More specifically, the timescale is cut by 16% for upstream activities such as planning, 41% for development, including design and technology, and 26% for industrialisation, including the deployment of production tools and logistics.
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