New Renault Twingo: £17k electric city car gets a snazzy interior

• Fully electric city car coming in 2026
• Expect to cost from £17,000
• Colourful dashboard and large digital displays

The Renault Twingo is soon to return to showrooms, but this time as a fully-electric city car. Before it’s officially launched next year, Renault has given us our first look at a prototype Twingo’s interior at the Brussels Motor Show, and it doesn’t look far off what we can expect from the final production car.

The Twingo will join the new Renault 4 and Renault 5 in its EV lineup, with the French brand confirming that it will cost from under €20,000, or roughly £17,000. If Renault can stick to that punchy pricing, the Twingo will be in a great position to compete against the Dacia Spring, Citroen e-C3 and upcoming Volkswagen ID.2 when it goes on sale in 2026. 

What does the new Twingo’s interior look like?

Taking a peek inside, the new Twingo’s interior looks to have taken a mighty step on from the old model. It’s important to point out that it’s still in prototype guise, so we expect a few things to change before production, but the general layout and tech are expected to remain the same. 

With digital screens, ambient lighting and colourful upholstery, things certainly look modern, but there are still a few nods to the original Twingo from the early 1990s. The three central climate knobs are a direct reference to the first-generation car, along with the big storage shelf under the dashboard.

The original Twingo was also known for its colourful interior trim – a theme that’s evident in the new car, too. The dashboard and door trims are painted to match the exterior paintwork, while there are a handful of lime green accents elsewhere. The tinted cork floor, patterned upholstery and giant panoramic roof are unlikely to reach production, however, as Renault will need to cut costs where possible to hit that €20,000 (£17,000) starting price.

On the other hand, the pair of dashboard screens look ready to roll off the production line. They’re the same size as the ones found in the Renault 5, but they’re arranged a bit differently, with the central 10-inch infotainment screen sitting separately from the 7-inch driver’s display.

There’s room for two passengers in the back of the Twingo and the seats fold and slide individually, making it easy to prioritise seating or boot space.

What else do we know about the new Twingo?

The exterior of the concept car draws heavily from the first-generation Twingo, the popular run-around that anyone who’s visited France will certainly be familiar with. We’re still yet to see the production car in the metal, but the final Twingo’s design is expected to remain true to the concept, as shown in our exclusive preview.

The compact dimensions, bonnet details and steeply-raked front end are all inspired by its great-grandfather and should be preserved for production, but the new Twingo will have five doors instead of three. The semi-circular LED lights add to its friendly appearance and it will be interesting to see if any of the concept car’s quirkiness is watered down before the real production car hits showrooms.

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Renault remains tight-lipped on the technical details, but promises an efficiency figure of up to 6.2 miles per kWh and lifetime CO2 emissions 75% lower than that of the average European combustion-engined vehicle. We can expect the Twingo to share its underpinnings with its Renault 4 and 5 siblings, as Renault’s EV-offshoot, Ampere, is responsible for the design and engineering of those new EVs as well.  

With the help of the Twingo, 4 and 5, Ampere is targeting 300,000 EV sales per year by 2025, ramping up to one million by 2031. Renault was already the third-biggest seller of EVs in Europe in 2022 and the new Twingo, with a predicted monthly leasing cost of under £90, will aim to get even more people behind the wheel of an electric vehicle when it hits the market in a few years time.

Check out our list of the cheapest electric cars you can buy today…