Autobayng News Team
Renault had a blinding 2025. Its usual fare has been going down well, but its new electric lineup hit the road and has been making a lot of people happy.
First, the retro-tastic Renault 5 in all the lurid hues you can imagine. Then Alpine’s A290 with “Renault 5-but-faster” energy added some spice to the mix. And now, we get a new Renault 4. All are retro-inspired in the best way, but with some of the finest modern EV tech you can find in Europe right now. 2025 Renault 4 E-Tech Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
It’s fair-ish to say that Renault’s line-up wasn’t setting the world alight before it figured out that looking back was the best way to look forward, but now it looks like there’s little stopping it. The 5 makes people grin when they see it, and get very smiley when they drive it.
So can the 4 do the same?
2025 Renault 4 E-Tech Electric: Specs And Features
The Renault 4 has a wholly different history from the 5, even if it also elicits smiles today. From the early 1960s through the mid-1990s (back when you could do that), the Renault 4 was a small box on wheels dripping with Gallic charm. It was cheap, practical, and let the people of France get on with their lives worry-free. 2025 Renault 4 E-Tech Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
Today’s Renault 4 is a little different. Based on the same platform as the spectacular Renault 5, this time round it’s an EV offering up to 247 miles of range on a charge rather than a rattly gas box. 2025 Renault 4 E-Tech Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
As with the Renault 5, the 4’s design harks back to the original ICE car that bears its name, albeit sensitively updated and sized up a touch—you need space for people, things, batteries, and safety features in 2025. While it’s not quite as eye-catching as its sibling, it’s still on the right side of ‘cute’ and stands out neatly in modern traffic. If you want your small family EV to make you smile as you walk up to it… Renault’s got your back. Smart graphics, design touches, and general Frenchness make it something to covet. Nostalgia’s a powerful drug, and looking at the wider world, a slice of the old days seems like just the rose-tinted tonic we need. 2025 Renault 4 E-Tech Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
Bless Renault for keeping this one pretty simple. There’s one powertrain option in the UK: a 52-kilowatt-hour battery that sends power to a 150-horsepower, 181 lb-ft motor driving the front wheels. That’ll get you from 0-62 mph in a languid 8.2 seconds, and up to a leisurely but adequate 93 mph. It’s not fast, but depending on trim, you’ll get up to 247 miles on a charge, though that’s under WLTP testing.
In its infinite wisdom, Renault put a “how far will I really go” tool on its website. Tell it where you’ll be driving, how warm it’ll be, whether you’re using Eco mode, etc, and you’ll be given a more realistic range figure. It’s a smart thing to keep buyers aware of what they’re like to get rather than leave them surprised that their car drops range on a highway in late December. More of that, please, wider industry.
Fast charging is capped at 100 kW, which may be plenty for a small, affordable car with suburban and city driving pretensions. Renault says it’ll charge from 15% to 80% in 30 minutes, which gives you enough time to pop it on a charger at a supermarket, do a weekly shop, and come back to a relatively full battery.
2025 Renault 4 E-Tech
Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
Speaking of weekly shops, it’s a practical wee thing. There’s a 14.8 cubic foot trunk with the seats up, 49.6 cubic feet with ‘em down, and enough cubby holes to store your daily detritus without worry. There are even a pair of cup holders in the center console.
2025 Renault 4 E-Tech
Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
2025 Renault 4: Driving Experience
It’s such a happy little thing you can’t help but grin while you float around town. There are no sporting pretensions (though there is a Sport mode) to the thing. The controls are all as light as a feather and just… easy.
2025 Renault 4 E-Tech
Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
Flick the wheel-mounted stalk into D and with a light touch of the throttle, you glide away. In Comfort mode, you don’t need to put much pressure on it to get up and go, and it feels suitably perky in town. Eco mode will stretch range, but numbs the controls slightly. Should range be a worry, you can live in that mode, but if it’s just going to be a city jaunt, then Comfort should do you. There’s a “Perso” mode to set the car up to your liking if you fancy it, too.
It doesn’t take much persuasion to get up to the local limits easily, and not worry too much about going over—if you do, it’ll cheerily bong at you to slow down. Like every new mainstream car, it comes with a full suite of mandated active safety features that make noises at you. Thankfully, you can turn them off relatively easily. 2025 Renault 4 E-Tech Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
It’s a tall car, and fairly slab-sided, so threading it through tight gaps is easy, though the glasshouse is pretty small. The rear window is pretty much useless. Thankfully, it comes with a reversing camera so you can sort of see what’s behind when you’re backing into a space. ‘Sort of’ is because it’s rather low resolution. An Insta360 it is not. You can see enough, but it irked a touch.
Heading out to the highway, the Renault 4 performs just fine. It’ll hit 70mph and sit there without any problems. The power specs may not seem great, but rest assured, you can overtake slower-moving motors happily. You get a bit of wind noise in the cabin, but otherwise it’s quiet enough to enjoy a podcast and not worry about much else. Essentially, it’s a car built to smooth out drudgery. 2025 Renault 4 E-Tech Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
While it’s not a sporty car, twisty roads are a giggle in it. Modest power and instatorque mean you can keep your speed up easily and find a good flow with it. The suspension isn’t rock hard, so it leans a touch as you whirr from bend to bend. The steering is smooth and light, too. Sport mode does add some vigor to the drive but it won’t blow your head off. Leaving it in comfort mode will do you just fine. It’s fun without being too fast, which is a rarity these days.
As well as switchable drive modes, you can adjust how much energy regeneration you get via the wheel-mounted paddles. It’ll go all the way from ‘naff all’ to one pedal driving, and is fun to flick around. Chances are you’ll just leave it in one pedal and go about your business.
2025 Renault 4 E-Tech
Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
The instrument binnacle comes with big, clear text so you can’t miss how fast you’re going, which mode you’re in, how much range you’ve got left, etc, and the infotainment screen is similarly clear. The 10.3-inch center display responds well to even the most flaccid of finger flicks, which is handy for people with weak handshakes. Renault’s own software is pretty intuitive, though you can use Apple CarPlay with ease. There are physical controls for some of the air con functions, but the (stellar) heated seats go through the screen.
What’s Good?
It’s so happy. Renault’s latest EVs don’t take life too seriously, and it really shines through in the driving experience. For all the market guff that others spew about ‘joy machines’ and such, the 4 simply nails happiness on the road. The fact that it doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously and that it doesn’t encourage you to drive like a weapon is a huge plus. 2025 Renault 4 E-Tech Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
Being a “not sporty” car has huge advantages when it comes to comfort. The suspension is pliant, the seats don’t squeeze your kidneys, and you effortlessly slither along your way. Sitting in city traffic for hours on end isn’t a pain here – a huge plus considering what the car’ll be used for.
Playing in the Renault 5 in the cold saw a pretty chunky drop in range, but that wasn’t the case with the Renault 4. Over mixed driving, it managed 3.6 miles per kWh, which would put its max range at 187 miles—not as big a loss as you’d expect. 2025 Renault 4 E-Tech Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
What’s Not So Good?
The wheel-mounted gear selector is a nice piece of hardware, but it can occasionally be a pain in the ass. It works like an ICE auto lever: foot on brake, wibble stick up or down to go forward or backward, foot off brake, proceed about your day. Here, if you don’t have just enough pressure on the brake, even if you’re stationary, it’ll refuse to switch directions. Of course, if you don’t glance at which way the car says it’s going to go (if it stays in reverse, for example) you can easily give it some throttle and find yourself moving the wrong way. It can be alarming, and dozy people may well end up planted on a wall as a result. 2025 Renault 4 E-Tech Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
Yes, it’s the law, and yes, it means the chronically distracted spend less time crashing, but the active safety bongs and bings are irritating. Being able to turn them off via a programmable hot key on the wheel is an advantage, but will owners make that happen? For their sanity’s sake, let’s hope so.
The one piece of genuinely useful active safety tech, the reversing camera, isn’t very good. You can see obstacles, so it does fulfil its purpose, but the quality is pretty poor.
2025 Renault 4: Price And Verdict
Where the Renault 5 with a smaller battery option kicks off cheaper at £22,995, the 4 starts at $35,668 (£27,195) in the UK, rising to $40,914 (£31,195) if you want more toys as part of the deal. It’s not cheap on the higher end, but you won’t spit your tea out while you’re browsing the configurator on a Sunday morning. 2025 Renault 4 E-Tech Photo by: Alex Goy / InsideEVs
The Renault 4 isn’t going to work for everyone. It’s small, its range isn’t huge, and 100kW charging is fine for most but not all, but… as a city car for occasional trips out and about, it’s a blinding choice. It’s fun, easy to live with, and it looks far more exciting than most of the bland boxes the rest of the world pumps out.
For the people it does work for, it’ll be utterly perfect, and it’ll brighten their days every time they get in for a drive. Gallery: 2025 Renault 4 E-Tech
Alex Goy is a freelance journalist based in London. He likes British sports cars, tea, and the feeling of the mild peril that only owning a British sports car can bring to your day. More Renault EV News
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