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Renault SA will rejuvenate the Twingo for the electric era as part of broader efforts to show its EV business can quickly bring new plug-in models to market.
The redesigned city car, presented at an investor event, will be sold from 2026 for less than €20,000 ($21,680), putting Renault in contention to produce affordable EVs in Europe.
Chinese manufacturers are expanding in the region, where consumers have been struggling with a cost-of-living crisis. The new Twingo — which takes a popular design of the 1990s into the electric age — will be developed in two years, enabling Renault’s EV business Ampere “to democratize EVs in Europe,” Chief Executive Officer Luca de Meo said at the event. “We want to make EVs accessible and profitable in this part of the world.”
Investors have been skeptical about Renault’s capacity to bring cheap EVs to market quickly, which has cast a pall on de Meo’s ambition to list Ampere on the stock market in April or May of next year.
The company initially wanted to pull off an initial public offering this year and pushed back those plans.