New Renault Twingo will cost less than £20,000

• New Renault Twingo reborn as an affordable electric car
• Four-door city car harks back to the Twingo of the 1990s
• Battery range of up to 163 miles
• Due on sale in 2027 with prices starting under £20,000

After years of teasing, the production version of the reborn Renault Twingo has finally been revealed. Due to arrive in 2027, this electric, ultra-affordable city car marks a rebirth for one of Renault’s most famous and beloved small cars of the 1990s.

Joining the retro Renault line-up below the electric Renault 5 and Renault 4, the new Twingo mixes modern styling with not-so-subtle nods back to its ancestor, and Renault says it's aiming for a starting price of less than £20,000 when it arrives in 2027.

The new Renault Twingo E-Tech is the first car to be developed under a Renault's new accelerated development project, Leap 100, which aims to substantially cut the time it takes to design and produce new models. The production car has been conceived and designed in less than two years – 100 weeks, to be precise. It will be built at Renault's Novo Mesto plant in Slovenia.

The new Renault Twingo will take on other affordable electric rivals such as the BYD Dolphin Surf, the Citroen e-C3 and the Dacia Spring, as well as the forthcoming new Volkswagen ID.1, helping make EVs more accessible to new car buyers.

2027 Renault Twingo prices and release date

The new Renault Twingo promises to go on sale in 2027 for an affordable starting price of less than £20,000. The company had previously said it was aiming for around £17,000, but that was a couple of years ago and inflation could raise that. Still, £20k should make it competitive against its rivals, as well as being more affordable than the Renault 5, which currently starts at £21,495.

2027 Renault Twingo styling, interior and technology

Styling features on the new Renault Twingo include the cute frog’s eye headlights of the 1990s car, modernised here with full LED technology. The ultra-short bonnet gives it what Renault calls a "one box" silhouette, with cheerful, curvy and expressive lines. Without wanting to imbue an inanimate object with too many human characteristics, it looks playful and mischievous with its smiling grille.

The new Renault Twingo is a short, compact car measuring 3789mm in length, 1720mm in width and 1491mm in height, but still has four side doors and should be surprisingly roomy for a small car. The paint colours available will include three new shades – Absolute Red, Absolute Green and Mango Yellow.

Inside, expect plenty of interior practicality, something the original 1993 Renault Twingo excelled at. Once again it's proved the source of inspiration for the design, with a cylindrical dashboard conceived to appear as though it's floating across the cabin. Bright body-coloured highlight appear across the dashboard and door panels, and the trim on the front doors is actually part of the painted body shell.

Nods to the original car include the red hazard light button, now with a transparent surround, and the original slogan – “À vous d’inventer la vie qui va avec” (“It’s up to you to invent the life to go with it”) – prinyted on the seat-folding straps. Another slogan, “Ouvert d’esprit” (“open-minded”), appears on the inside of the boot lid.

Although UK specs have yet to be finalised, Renault says all versions of the Twingo will have two horizontal screens on the dahsboard – a seven-inch driver display and a 10-inch central infotainment touchscreen. Cars from Techno trim upwards will have Renault's OpenR Link infotainment system with Google features built-in, including Google Maps with EV route planning, Google Assistant and wireless Android Auto, as well as Apple CarPlay. Apps available will inclulde Amazon Music, BBC iPlayer and Prime Video.

The graphics and animations on the screens will be unique to the Twingo, with a welcome jingle composed by none other than French electronic music supremo Jean-Michelle Jarre.

Renault says that the Twingo will offer interior space to rival cars in the segment above it, with good knee and shoudler room and a 360-litre boot that can expand to more than 1000 litres with the back seats folded down. The rear seats are split into two, each of which can slide up to 17cm to prioritise passenger or boot space. The rear seatbacks recline, too. There's a 50-litre underfloor compartment in which to store the charging cable, and more than a dozen storage spaces around the cabin, totalling 19 litres of space.

2027 Renault Twingo battery, performance and efficiency

The Twingo is powered by an 82PS electric motor with 175Nm of torque, driving the front wheels and powered by a 27.5kWh battery that should give a range of up to 163 miles. It's not fast – the 0-62mph time comes up in 12.1 seconds – although it will hit 81mph flat out. It's very much designed for the city, rather than the motorway, although it's light for a modern car – around 1200kg – which should help handling at higher speeds.

The Twingo can charge from 10-100% capacity in four and a quarter hours, using the 6.6kW onboard charger. However, two upgraded onboard chargers are available – the 11kW AC unit will mean a charging time of two hours 35 minutes from 10% to 100%, while the 50kW DC charger will let it fast charge from 10% to 80% in around 30 minutes.

The battery is a lithium-ion phosphate unit, which is a first for Renault. The company says its advantages include the use of abundant materials such as iron and phosphate rather than rarer ones like nickel and cobalt.

Both vehicle-to-load (V2L) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology will be available, letting you power external appliances using the car battery, and send stored power back to the electricity grid.

2027 Renault Twingo trim levels

Although UK specs haven't been officialy confirmed, we do have some ideas of trim levels and features. Renault has so far announced two trim levels – Evolution and Techno.

The Twingo Evolution gets 16-inch wheel covers, presumably over steel wheels, the dual-screen infotainment setup with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, manual climate control and rear parking sensors, as well as cruise control.

Upgraded to the Twingo Techno, and you get two-tone 16-inch wheel covers, tinted rear windows, power-folding door mirrors and the upgraded OpenR Link infotainment system with all the Google goodies. A Reno digital avatar will be on hand to help you out as an AI assistant, using ChatGPT, and the audio system is upgraded to a six-speaker Arkamys set up. Automatic climate control and a folding front passenger seat are also included, as is a rear-view camera, adaptive cruise control, and hands-free entry.