Renault R5 E-Tech, labor of love | FormulaPassion.it

Now we know. We know how the new R5 E-Tech was born: an act of love, a burst of passion, an “I want it” said in front of a research prototype. It was Thursday 2 July 2020 when Luca De Meo, Renault CEO, was struck by a static prototype of a modern reinterpretation of the R5 exhibited at the Technocentre in Guyancourt, near Paris. And he wanted it “in production as soon as possible”. No sooner said than done: a few months later, on 14 January 2021, when the Renaulution plan was launched, the prototype in question was already a working concept car, as well as the symbol of the group's new strategy.

So today the new R5 E-Tech Electric is ready to enter production. And to think that the 2020 concept was just an exercise in style, a proposal for a small electric car, which had already been discarded but which was presented to De Meo anyway. The basic idea, which led to the project's rejection, was that the Renault designers did not want to launch themselves into a model with a retro design. Instead De Meo decided the opposite and now the R5 is among us again. Of course, very different from the original model in terms of size and power supply. But it must be said that already in the Seventies, to respond to the emergency caused by the oil crisis, the ingenious R5 was presented in a pioneering electric version with lead batteries and city performance, i.e. a maximum speed of 80 km/h and a range of 110km.

A historical double bond for the R5 E-Tech Electric which is obviously very modern: the style-homage to the cult model in fact hides a platform designed exclusively for electric traction with only four battery modules, a significant optimization compared to the competition, which allows significant savings in terms of weight and space. Then he has an avatar called “Reno”, a small character equipped with Artificial Intelligence that does everything, including providing information in advance about the landscapes you pass through.

But what matters here is something else: it is the love, or rather the love at first sight, that a great manager had for a research prototype. Which, thanks to his passion, is now a reality. Few cars in the more than one hundred year history of the automobile were born like this.