Bonjour, ma cherie! Getting up close and personal with the new Renault Twingo

November 6, 2025 George East

From blank sheet to reality in just over two years, here’s everything you need to know about the new, all-electric Renault Twingo.

Say ‘bonjour’ to the new-for-2026 Renault Twingo – the French firm’s fourth and latest addition to its line of all-electric ‘Legendary Icons’ which already comprises the rather excellent Renault 5 and the equally brilliant Renault 4.

Unveiled officially today, this fourth-generation Twingo promises to invoke the magic of the original car, which captured the hearts and attention of ‘Car People’ worldwide. As well as riffing heavily on the Mk1 Twingo’s oh-so-cute styling and practicality, this latest car promises to be priced at around £17,000 when it arrives on UK shores next autumn. With Renault’s £100 ‘Twingo R Pass’, you can ensure your place in the queue one of the first new Twingo owners in the UK.

Renault Twingo EV range and powertrain

The biggest difference between the 2026 Renault Twingo and any of its predecessors, is that it’s fully electric. Powered by a 27.5kWh battery, the all-electric Twingo promises a range of up to 163 miles and features a front axle-mounted electric motor producing 82bhp.

As for charging time, the maximum charge speed is a relatively slow-on-paper 50kWh. Yet given the battery’s relatively small capacity, a 10-30% charge is doable in around 30 minutes.

EV Powered recently headed to Paris to find out what we can expect from this “little big car” when it goes on sale in Blighty next year. In the City of Light, we were also joined by two very special guests – Renault chief designer, Laurens van den Acker, and Vittorio d’Arienzo, Ampere’s product global leader – to explain why the Twingo is poised to Renaulutionise the A-segment.

With a range of 163 miles from its 27.5kWh battery, the Renault Twingo won’t be blasting across continents any time soon. Yet being a city car, it’s not designed to do that. In fact, Renault’s engineers calculated its range is in line with A-segment driving habits.

“I would call it a masterpiece of correct sizing,” d’Arienzo told EV Powered during the new Renault Twingo’s pre-launch event. “The average European customer for this sort of car drives roughly 35 kilometres a day, so you can drive the Twingo all week on a single charge.”

Renault Twingo practicality

The new Renault Twingo is smaller than the R4 and R5, and an addition to Renault’s EV line-up that d’Arienzo describes as “pragmatic”.

“When I talk about the R5, I’m talking about a car characterised by its agility and driveability,” he explained. “When I talk about the R4, then I’m talking about practicality – you get all of the drivability of the Renault 5 with a trunk.

“As for the Twingo, you’re getting the best space-to-footprint ratio on the market, with a range that’s tailored for the city.”

Measuring just 3.79 metres long (a hair’s breadth longer than the kei car-sized, 3.4-metre original Twingo), the all-electric version packs some serious practicality. Like the Mk1, two sliding individual rear seats make for various seating configurations.

With the rear seats up and in place, the Twingo has 360 litres of boot space. Fold them, and this grows to 1,000l. By our estimates, this makes the Twingo’s boot capacity larger than that of its multiple award-winning R5.

And on boot space… look closely at the inside of the tailgate, and “Open Minded” is written in French to capture the joyous, care-free nature of its now-iconic predecessor. A further nod to Twingo-based whimsy are the straps to adjust the rear seats – these are also finished with what translates as “it’s up to you to live the life to go with it”.

Renault Twingo rivals and pricing

The Twingo will cost more than the two cheapest electric cars on sale today in the UK – the £14,995 Dacia Spring and the £15,995 Leapmotor T03. In Europe, Renault promises that the Twingo will be priced from €20,000 for the entry-level Evolution trim.

Prices for UK cars will be announced nearer the time of their arrival, but expect Renault to follow suit here with sub-£20k pricing. When it hits UK roads next autumn, the Twingo’s closest competitors looks likely to be the upcoming Volkswagen ID.1 and the Kia EV1.

To keep retail costs low, the Twingo underwent an aggressively accelerated development programme, which turned it from a blank sheet of paper to a full production car in just 21 months.

As van den Acker (pictured below) and d’Arenzio explain, this short development period was down to a streamlined working approach the team adopted from Renault’s Advanced China Development Centre (ACDC) in Shanghai. To cut costs, the Twingo shares its AmpR Small platform with the larger R5 and R4.

Opened in 2024, ACDC was founded to bring together China’s agile EV development with Renault’s all-electric know-how. This Sino-European approach was the brainchild of ex-Renault CEO, Luca de Meo, the brains behind the French carmaker’s EV ‘Renaulution’.

The ex-Renault chief also wanted the Twingo ready in two years, a goal van den Acker initially described as “crazy”.

“It was a great experience working with the Chinese team at ACDC,” said the designer whose pen is responsible for some of the most desirable Renault models in years. “There are no weekly meetings, and everyone working on the project is in the same room at the same time – if somebody raises his finger for something, you solve it immediately.

“This concentrated rhythm was actually helpful and it kept everyone focused. Our problem is now that we’ve done it once, and now we need to scale it up and try to apply this to the rest of our programmes. Obviously if we don’t do this, we’ll get eaten alive.”

Trims and specification

Reflecting Renault’s streamlined approach to the Twingo’s gestation process is its attitude to trim levels and battery options. The front-mounted 82bhp motor paired with the 27.5kWh battery is the only powertrain. Moreover, there are just two trim levels: the entry-level ‘Evolution’, and top-tier ‘Techno’.

In keeping with the “big little car” philosophy, the Twingo is generously equipped and pivots away from the utilitarian nature of the original.

The entry-level Twingo gets a seven-inch digital driver display, a centrally-mounted 10-inch infotainment screen, Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity, those all-important sliding rear seats, and a height-adjustable driver seat. Renault has listened to customer feedback and resisted the urge to make everything screen-based – you get actual physical buttons to adjust the climate control and cruise control.

Being a 21st-century car, there’s a raft of ADAS settings. Thankfully, though, you can turn them off at the push of a button on a panel of three adjacent to the steering wheel. Should you wish to keep them on, though, these include rear parking sensors, automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping assist, and a driver monitoring alert.

The more expensive Techno cars build on the toys, and come with Renault’s OpenR Link multimedia system with Google built-in. This gives you the stress-free option of using Google Maps to plan your journeys, plus Google Assistant, and Google Play. The ChatGPT-powered ‘Reno’ avatar is integrated into the main touchscreen, while automatic climate control, tinted rear windows, electric door mirrors, and a folding front passenger seat are standard issue.

However, the ease afforded by the Techno’s one-pedal driving, hands-free key card, digital rear-view camera, plus its automatic high beam and windscreen wipers could well prove too big a draw when it comes to inner-city driving.

Despite the differences in standard equipment, d’Arienzo stresses that the cars are one and the same – the biggest differences are aesthetic. The Evolution rides on 16-inch wheels and comes with grey body cladding, while the Techno gets 18-inchers and gloss black detailing.

“We really think we’re creating a market with the new Twingo,” he explains. “Both cars get a lot of the same tech, and I believe we are the first to create an A-segment car with Google built-in.

“I think the car that will really democratise things is the €20,000 Evolution model. It has the same battery, same power, same basic features as the Techno. There’s some internal debate about this, but I think it’s looking very, very cool on the smaller, 16-inch wheels, too.”

Renault Twingo EV design

On those looks – it’s a Twingo, isn’t it? With those “cheeky, smiling headlights”, the mono-box design, and the rounded rear, there’s definitely more than a nod to the first-gen car. Oh, and those air vents on the bonnet? Those are no longer for cooling. The middle one is used to refill the windscreen washer fluid.

Despite the obvious lineage, van den Acker is keen to stress that his design is a “feeling” of the original Twingo, rather than a 2026 pastiche. To explain what he means, he draws on a personal anecdote.

“Back in 1992 when I first saw a Twingo on the street, it was something youthful I’d never seen before, and it put a smile on my face. We can’t make every car in our line-up like this, but it would be really nice if we could have something that gets you to fall in love with the brand, and then maybe migrate to another model in the future.”

Retaining the Mk1 Twingo’s happy nature was important for the Dutchman during the design process of his “green baby”.

Van den Acker doesn’t shy away from the fact that his Twingo will most likely appeal to the automotive world’s Francophile contingent. This is, after all, a car that plays a Jean-Michèle Jarre score when you open the door.

“People who love French cars tend to love France and French culture,” he explains. “If someone drives a French car, he probably goes on holiday to France. I think that sense of joy is important in this A-segment. There are plenty of EVs out there you can respect, but there are very few EVs you can love. If you look at the Twingo, or the R5, or the R4, you can love these cars.”

Analogously, d’Arienzo adds: “I do believe that the design is part of our responsibility to not make ugly stuff.”

Just like the exterior, the cabin reflects the “feeling” of a Twingo. For me, at least, the coloured dashboard inserts invoked throwbacks to ‘90s Twingos on European holidays with my parents, as did the floor mats – after all, their geometrics are derived from the multi-coloured pattern woven on the original’s car grey cloth seats. The huge ‘slappable’ hazard warning light button is also a playful acknowledgement of the past.

The rest of the all-electric Twingo’s cabin, though, feels thoroughly like a modern Renault – it’s well made, it’s easy to use, and it looks pretty future-proof when compared to some rivals.

Final thoughts

While its price point is undoubtedly attractive, the 2026 Renault Twingo’s design is what will appeal the most. If you’re a ‘Car Person’ of a certain age, it’ll bring up happy memories you’d long forgotten. Renault has leant into the car’s heritage without making it a parody of itself, and it retains all of the qualities that have made the R4 and R5 such roaring successes. And if you’re too young to remember the original, this new model’s friendly and fun character will win you over in just the same way the original did van den Acker.