Opinion: the price of the electric Renault 5 could be key to the future of Renault

The foundations of this article rest on the fact that it is an opinion piece. In truth, it is an argued intuition, based on signs and facts from the past, about why a totem of automotive history might be revived, above all that of affordable domestic and sporting motoring for the general public. These speculations, at the risk of not coming true, I am willing to run with, starting from the premise that I am the first to find no reason to claim that there are cheap electric cars, but understanding that the price of the electric Renault 5 could make this car the key to the relaunch that the top management of the French firm hopes for in its course over the medium term.

Renault 5 EV prototype, Car of the Year 2021

To launch into heading this paragraph as such, I start from the fact that only one month of this year has passed, that I have awarded a prototype (prototypes: exhibition cars, always more spectacular in concept, than the production version), and that the title of car of the year 2021 is unofficial, since it is not the official COTY but the one your servant has dared to award to the brutal prototype on display, which has served me as a source of inspiration, as the wallpaper of my digital typewriter, since its presentation.

A rush, hype, so that the more modern readers can understand me, which the exhibition of a spectacular show model induced in me. In my view, it blends the brutal image of the Renault 5 Turbo “Culogordo” with the discreet yet inquisitive Renault Clio Williams, which from the first second of its appearance prompted us to think about the possibility of finding ourselves facing the prototype of the electric successor to the Renault 5 Copa Turbo in Spain, more Alpine than ever, that is, of the hypothetical Alpine 5 EV, rather than that of a mass-production generalist model aimed at selling an immense number of units by offering, as its main attraction, an affordable electric car, provided the price of the standard electric Renault 5 allowed it.

But I take all this, in hindsight, with reluctant and restrained emotion, since it would not be the first time Renault disappoints me, especially with Alpine in the middle, and the definitive mass-production electric Renault 5 ended up as little more than a Renault Sandero, and I say that correctly: an electric Renault Sandero. In 2012 I remember how the rush the Renault Alpine A110-50 gave me, that superb prototype which even ended up running as one of the shows preceding the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix.

A spectacular conceptual heir of the original Alpine A110 but of the 21st century, which remained just that, nothing, well, something yes: that from it, the subsequent Renault production models inherited an immense and even disproportionate emblem on their front. A disappointment, because, despite the delight it is to the eye and to anyone who enjoys delightful driving, the soon-to-be-discontinued current Alpine A-110, its design is much more restrained than the one exhibited five years earlier.

An electric Renault 5 that could bring light after a period of shadows

Be that as it may, with nearly 10 years between that prototype and the just-presented one that concerns and inspires us, the two are separated by a leap in time, regulations, society and economics… and let us not forget, under the baton of two CEOs at the helm of the same ship, from Carlos Ghosn to Luca de Meo, from a controversial figure to someone known for bets that leave no stone unturned, someone entrusted with the upward repositioning of a brand with an electric Renault 5 EV at the door as the star of the new era in the roadmap presentation, called with complexity Renaulution, is a declaration of intent in itself.

And it is that positioning a segment B vehicle among electric city cars is key for all generalist manufacturers, despite SUVs. In fact, we have seen that the Peugeot e-208, in turn the conceptual heir of the legendary Peugeot 205, has been one of the 10 best-selling cars in Europe this year, for a reason, surpassing direct and related rivals such as the Opel Corsa-e. This is something that, when production of the R5 EV begins, possibly around 2023, should be an objective, all the more so if we consider the threshold that, from the outset, I believe should be set for the price of the electric Renault 5.

Electric Renault 5, the successor to the ZOE and complement to the Twingo Z.E.

The future electric Renault 5 could be the key to the Renault range now that the ZOE, the electric city car whose popularity is justified by its good work, as we have seen every time we have been able to enjoy one, and which is currently the firm’s reference in electric mobility among small cars despite prices starting at 30,000 euros, is very close to the end of its commercial life cycle.

In fact, according to Renault’s plans, the R5 EV would enter production in 2024, once the economic readjustment allows manufacturing costs to be reduced, ergo, the price of the Renault 5 EV relative to the ZOE should translate into a lower RRP for the former compared with the latter.

But it could also be so relative to the eternal Renault Twingo, now electric, a car that can be bought for less than 20,000 euros if promotions, discounts, incentives and everything else that reduces the price are applied.

It is because of its positioning that I understand the price of the electric Renault 5 should sit between the two, that is, between 20,000 and 30,000 euros, not necessarily below 25,000, simply by logic of the niche and of its positioning within the electric car catalogue and range; Renault needs a reference car sitting at around 24-26,000 onwards.

After the return of the Renault 5 as an electric car, will the Renault 5 Alpine return?

With Alpine as the sporting division of Renault, the Renault Sport portfolio, now officially integrated or absorbed by Alpine itself, makes me intuit, and dream, of the adaptation of a good number of Renault models into Alpines, where the Renault 5 EV would have a variant such as the Alpine 5 EV, and for which the talented X-Tomi has already made his bet in the form of a render.

Overshadowing and succeeding a deceased Renault ClioSport/RS whose last generation sold was the most decaffeinated lost in its approach and its specifications, its owners will forgive me, but above all in its driving, so it is time to affirm both that there are fun electric cars and that there are powerful petrol cars which, on paper, excite spirits but say nothing when driven.

For that reason, if I had a voice and vote on Renault’s board, and if I were not risking my position or my money, I would passionately bet on building an Alpine 5 electric, a car which, although there are no longer cheap or affordable sports cars for a public looking for either their first car and sports car or their everyday car and affordable sports car, could still become a new reference in a niche yet to be explored and exploited, that of segment B electric compacts.

A car which, if the price of the electric Renault 5 should be around 25,000 euros, the Alpine 5 EV should not go below 32-36,000, even approaching 40,000.

Fortune-tellers of the automotive world don’t win the lottery’s big prize

In conclusion, the first is that, if Renault wants to succeed with its move, the price of the electric Renault 5 should sit between that of its siblings and no higher than that of its direct rivals.

Second, sporting motoring is in decline, not as much as MPVs, but marketing no longer sells you on television a small, sporty, exciting and affordable exciting car; it sells you an SUV (full stop).

That is why, if the bet on the Renault 5 EV may be more or less a bet on a winning horse, that of an Alpine 5 EV as the champion of sporting electric mobility at an “affordable” price would be, once again, the same as marketing a car with residual sales volume, like the Alpine A110 2017 itself, but which for lovers of emotional driving would be like the last of the Mohicans of the new electric era of the automobile.