The Renault 5 already has a What Car? trophy to its name, having won the Readers’ Choice poll at our Electric Car Awards a few months back. Repeating that feat at our Car of the Year Awards is no small achievement, but in the final tally, the 5 collected almost twice as many votes as our second-place contender.
With styling cues from the much-loved original Renault 5 (discontinued in the 1990s), the new electric hatchback goes up rivals such as the Fiat 500 and Mini Cooper. Crucially, if you opt for the version with a 52kWh battery, it will be able to go farther than those rivals; its official range is 249 miles. With the smaller, 40kWh battery, that figure is likely to fall to around 200 miles.
When you need to plug it in, the 5 should accept a charge at the same rate as its larger Megane E-Tech electric sibling, so a 10-80% top-up could take only around 30 minutes via a rapid public charger.
Power comes from a single 134bhp electric motor; for anyone who thinks that sounds a bit tame, Renault’s performance arm, Alpine, is working on its own version. Dubbed the Alpine A290, it promises more power and a 0-62mph sprint time of less than 7.0sec.
Inside, the 5 will share its 9.0in infotainment screen with the Megane, in which it is quite easy to use. And while we haven’t yet sat inside the 5, we expect it to have space for four adults, with a big enough boot for their shopping.
As with the original, the new 5 should be attractively cheap to buy. With an estimated price of around £22,000, it’s likely to undercut its Fiat and Mini rivals considerably.