The Renault 5 E-Tech is a Good Car with a Bad Habit

Renault asks 32,900 euros for the version of this car you actually want. That buys you the 2025 Renault 5 E-Tech with the larger 52 kWh battery and the 150 horsepower motor. It is a lot of money for a car that is less than four meters long. The price puts it in direct conflict with the MINI Cooper E and comfortably above the Citroën ë-C3. You are paying for the style and the badge. Fortunately, the engineers gave you a proper car underneath the nostalgia.

This is a B-segment hatchback designed for European cities. It competes with the Fiat 500e and the new electric MINI, but it offers five doors where those cars often force you to compromise. The trunk holds 326 liters. That is enough for a weekly shop but tight for a holiday. You will not fit four large adults in here comfortably for a long trip. It is honest about its size.

Range is the first question everyone asks. The manufacturer claims this 52 kWh battery delivers 410 kilometers on the WLTP cycle. That number looks good on a brochure.

You should not expect to see 410 kilometers in the real world. WLTP testing happens in a laboratory with the air conditioning off and the car rolling gently. In actual driving, you will likely see around 300 to 320 kilometers. If you drive at 130 km/h on the Autobahn in winter, that number will drop to 230 kilometers. That is physics. It is sufficient for a city car, but you must plan your charging stops on cross-country trips.

The engineers chose NMC chemistry for the battery pack. This stands for Nickel Manganese Cobalt. They did this because NMC cells are energy dense. They pack more power into a smaller space than the cheaper LFP batteries found in the Citroën. The trade-off is cost and durability. NMC batteries generally degrade faster if you constantly charge them to 100 percent. You need to treat this battery with care if you want it to last ten years.

Renault built this car on the AmpR Small platform. This is a dedicated electric architecture, not a combustion car chassis with batteries stuffed in the trunk. The floor is flat. The center of gravity is low. They mounted a wound rotor synchronous motor at the front. This motor uses no rare earth metals. That is a smart choice for the supply chain and the environment. It produces 150 horsepower and 245 Newton-meters of torque. The car weighs nearly 1,500 kilograms, so it is not a rocket. It is brisk enough to merge safely.

The suspension is where this car surprises you. Renault fitted a multi-link rear axle. Most cars in this price bracket use a simple torsion beam. A torsion beam is cheap and durable, but it makes the rear wheels react together. If one wheel hits a bump, the other one feels it. The multi-link setup allows each rear wheel to move independently. The result is a ride quality that feels like a much larger vehicle. It absorbs potholes without crashing. It stays planted in corners. You rarely see this level of engineering in a small car anymore.

The interior is where the trouble starts. You are greeted by two large screens. The gauge cluster is digital, and the infotainment system runs on Google software. The software works well enough. It is fast and the maps are excellent. The problem is how you control the car. Renault removed too many physical buttons. You have a row of toggle switches below the screen, but they are shortcuts, not direct controls. If you want to change the temperature or fan speed, you often have to tap the screen. This requires you to look away from the road. It is dangerous and annoying. A volume knob would have cost them two euros. They left it out.

The materials are a mix of recycled fabrics and hard plastics. It looks interesting, with denim-style cloth on the dashboard in the Techno trim. It feels modern without being cold. The seats are supportive and heavily bolstered, perhaps too much for wider drivers. The driving position is good, but the high floor means your knees sit slightly higher than in a gas car.

Reliability is the great unknown here. This is a new platform with new software. Renault has a history of electronic gremlins. The mechanical parts of an electric motor are simple and generally robust. The suspension is complex and has more bushings to wear out than a simpler car. The wound rotor motor has brushes that will eventually need service, unlike a permanent magnet motor. You are buying the first generation of a new product. That carries risk.