Renaulltt’’s allll--ellecttriic hott hattch
Renault isworking on bringing back the Renault 5 small hatchback as an EV, and it’s having a bit of fun with it judging by the looks of a new batch of official concept imagery.
Badged the Renault 5 Turbo 3E, the concept was inspired by the awesome widebody R5 Turbo 2 from themid-1980s, including a trio of slats in the nose that provides cooling for the batteries and extra downforce, while the back end gets a huge spoiler and accompanying diffuser. The air inlet also hides the charging socket.
The wheels are pushed way out from the body (totalwidth is 2020mm), covered in chunky retro arches, with two forwardfacing intakes on the rear. More retro goodness is in the square fog lights, each comprising 16 LED blocks.
Those intakes aren’t just for the brakes either, as Renault has placed two electricmotors on the rear axle for rear-drive power, one perwheel.
Power is rated at 280kW, while torque is a healthy 700Nm, fed by a relatively small 42kWh battery. Renault says it’s enough for ‘‘several laps’’ of a gymkhana drift circuit.
Top speed is rated at 200kph and the 0-100kph time is 3.5 seconds. Thanks to plenty of carbon fibre in the Turbo 3E’s construction, the whole thing weighs only 980kg, although Renault quietly adds that this is not including the batteries, which add 520kg to the total.
Inside are carbon race seats, a race-ready harness, an upright handbrake lever for maximum driftage, and lots of yellow and purple accents.
Behind the wheel are 10 small digital screens, mimicking the original R5 Turbo 2’s 10 analogue gauges.
Three drive modes are mentioned, but they aren’t what you might expect. ‘‘Turbo’’ helps the car drift, ‘‘Track Invader’’ is ‘‘for playing’’ and ‘‘Donut’’ lets the car do 360-degree spins.
The final touch showing that R5 Turbo 3E doesn’t take itself too seriously is a teddy bear called Drifty. He is there to ‘‘relax and comfort passengers overwhelmed by the show car’s muscle.’’
Renault is showing off the Turbo 3E at nextmonth’s Paris Motor Show. Unfortunately, there aren’t any current plans to put the concept into production, but we will see an all-electric Renault 5 at some stage in the near future, alongwith plenty of other electric models from Renault.
Alpine, Renault’s performance sub-brand, is working on its own take on the R5 though, so we should eventually get something sporty out of the reborn hatch, even if it isn’t the 3E.