Renault is nailing the transition to an EV future | Thank Frankel it’s Friday

But for how long? And when the turn back towards the intended direction comes, will it be a hairpin bend requiring all the lock there is and a deft yank on the handbrake, or a gentle arcing curve along whose verges will lie the corpses of those car companies that bet the farm on EVs but just couldn’t hold out any longer?

If I had to name one company from those whose recent pasts have not been perhaps so glittering but appears to have arrived in the right place at the right time with the right product, it’s Renault. You may already have read our review of the gorgeous new electric Renault 5, but this week at the Paris Motor Show the company showed where it is heading from here and, to me at least, it looks like it is in absolutely the right direction.

For on top of the 5, it showed the spiritual successor to the fabled Renault 4, reborn as a great looking crossover EV, but crucially using the vast bulk of the running gear and platform from the 5, keeping development costs to a minimum.

There’s also the brilliant looking Renault 17 restomod X Ora Ito concept, a one off re-imagining of its 1970s coupé and the Emblème , a hydrogen powered – so still ultimately EV – SUV concept showing that Renault doesn’t have to do retro to make a great looking car.

But the one I’m most excited about is the new Twingo, which recreates the iconic one box design of the now 30-year-old original, and will go on sale in 2026 priced from around £17,000 with five doors and a range of perhaps 180 miles.

The first Twingo is a car with a very special place in my heart. I remember when it came out, how we loved it and how disappointed we were to learn Renault didn’t think it would sell in sufficient volume to justify tooling up for right hand drive. Well, it got that wrong.

The car did brilliantly, but too late for us. It was such a clearly conceived, simple yet imaginative and beautifully executed car – an absolute classic affordable French runaround in the finest traditions of the country that has given us more of them than anyone else.

So, let’s hope Renault doesn’t make the same mistake as it did with the original, for I understand the business case for right hand drive production is not yet made. For what it’s worth, if Renault can get it to market looking anything like as good as the concept (the electric Renault 5 was almost indistinguishable from its concept) and at close to that money, I imagine it would sell in numbers that would more than justify the additional expense, even on a tiny margin car like this.

What Renault has grasped with all these cars is that there is no real point of differentiation in powertrains any more beyond the purely objective – faster, slower, heavier, lighter – so what really matters is what these cars look like and how much they cost to buy and run.

And it seems to be nailing both challenges right now; punters will already be queuing up outside dealerships from a company with an enviable track record in producing great looking, affordable small cars over a period of many decades and a name familiar to all.