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Electric cars might save the plant, but they certainly won't save you money until now.
This is the Renault Twizy at 6 and a half thousand pounds is the UK's cheapest new car.
except it's not really a car at all. Check out these crazy beetle wing doors. We'll be
taking the Twizy out onto the streets of central London, it's natural environment to see if
it really is the future of urban transport The Twizy is about 2 1/2 meters long.
And it's not much wider than a motor to bike and the seats are arranged one behind the
other, you can probably just about see our cameraman Matt there in the back. The Twizy
uses a 17 brake horsepower electric motor give a top speed of 50 miles an hour and a
claimed range of 62 miles. However, in our tests, we found that a range between 37 and
50 miles is more realistic.
Driving the Twizy feels quite strange at first. This versions actually got the optional £550
doors, but there are still no windows so, you're quite exposed to the elements and you
need to be prepared for plenty of attention. Luckily, the controls are really simple. There
are no gears so just accelerate, brake and steer.
And you see me zipping in and out of traffic really easily. Electric motors produce all
that torque or pulling power from a stand still, so The Twizy actually feels quite quick
up to about 30 miles an hour. And, it's brilliant fun. The steering is really direct so you
can dart around around corners like a go-kart.
Unfortunately the ride quality isn't such a strong point, it's very firm. And there
is almost no padding in the seat. So it's lucky you'll only be using for short journeys.
The Twizy's also too wide to filter through traffic like a motorbike, and although here
in central London you escape the congestion charge you can't use the motorbike lanes,
so it's not really that much quicker than a normal car across town, and certainly slower
than taking the tube.
You'll need to wrap warm in winter, too. But, think twice about leaving your coat in the
car. The 31 litre compartment behind the rear seat is barely big enough for a hat and gloves.
as for carrying a passenger, they'll have to sit with their legs splayed around the
front seat like this, which isn't very dignified, especially for ladies.
on the plus side you do have seatbelt and it's quite enclosed back here so it certainly
feel safe when riding pillion on the motorbike In the front there's a 3 point seat belt plus
a second shoulder strap to hold you in. And, the steering wheel even has an air bag. You
can recharge it's batteries from a normal household socket.
A full charge takes around 3 1/2 hours and should cost less than 1 pound. Now, I know
what you're thinking. This is all very well on a hot, sunny day like this, but what happens
if it rains, well the short answer is, you get wet. For such a small maneuverable car,
visibility isn't as good as you might expect.
Not least because there is no rear window. You can specify parking senses as optional
extra though along with the Bluetooth kit, coloured body work wraps for the exterior,
and even a weatherproof blanket. No amount of accessories though can upstage the radical
design of the Twizy itself it's a style statement and it turns more heads than supercars costing
twenty times as much.
cost, of course, is the other main reason to consider a Twizy over normal car, especially
for younger drivers. A start price of less than £7,000 is impressively low, but there
is a caveat. You have to lease the batteries from Renault which costs £45 a month or more,
depending on your mile age you can sell your Twizy and stop paying the lease at any time,
but that's still a minimum extra £500 a year to consider.
Insurance isn't especially cheap either.
In Britain, the Twizy's lack of weather protection could be more of an issue than it's limited
range. This video would look really different after all if filmed January rather than July.
Despite our reservations though it's hard not to fall for the Twizy, it can be a huge
hit or monumental miss, but it is so radical and so fun to drive that it might just catch
on