Renault 4 review

Driving position 

This is easy for us because the Renault 4’s cabin is nearly identical to the Renault 5 we drove a few months ago. 

But because the ‘4’ is higher than the ‘5’, you do get a better view of the road ahead, which is always handy. 

The seating position itself is rather good for a small electric car, with plenty of adjustment for the steering wheel and manual seats.  

It’s just a shame the batteries under the floor stop the seat from going quite low enough for taller drivers. 

As for comfort, we spent hours in the driving seat and didn’t have any major issues.  

Tech and features 

Like with the driving position, the Renault 4 shares its tech and features with the fan-favourite Renault 5 E-Tech. 

This means you get Google software with Google Maps built in and a seamless Android operating system – one of the best we’ve ever used. You get wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto too, of course. 

Directly in front of the driver is a seven-inch digital gauge cluster that you can customise to show the driving info you prefer. In the middle, you get a 10.1-inch screen. 

There’s also an AI assistant called ‘Reno’ (pronounced ‘ree-no’) running on ChatGPT software. You can ask it questions like “Hey Reno, how can I maximise the range of my car?” and “Hey Reno, how do I change a tyre?”  

It’s not the best AI assistant we’ve used, but let’s be honest, they’re not that useful in the car yet.  

While the infotainment system runs smoothly and is incredibly crisp, the rear-view camera looks like it’s straight from the 2010s. It’s pretty blurry and feels like one of the areas Renault cut costs to get us the ‘4’ at such a great price. 

Considering the rest of the interior, we’d expect a higher-quality reversing camera like we found in the recent MINI Cooper Electric we tested. 

Electric motors and power 

Renault decided to give the ‘4’ only one option for the battery and motor – the most popular configuration from the ‘5’ – which is the one we’d recommend anyway. 

This setup is a 52kWh battery with a 150hp front-mounted electric motor. It’s all you need for a car of its size and style. 

Not that it matters, but it has a top speed of 93mph and a 0-62mph time of 8.2 seconds. These stats mean almost nothing for a city car, but mean you shouldn’t have any issues at junctions or roundabouts. 

But our favourite feature is its one-pedal driving system – the first ever fitted to a Renault. 

Thankfully, it’s great. Using the paddles behind the wheel, you can quickly change between four levels of regenerative braking. You rarely ever need to use the brakes with the strongest level, which is exactly what you want. 

As for drive modes, there’s Comfort, Eco, Sport and Perso. We’d recommend leaving it in Comfort almost all the time, but the other modes do what they say on the tin well. 

Sport is great for extra poke, Eco helps you save range, and Perso (short for ‘personal’) lets you pick your perfect settings. 

Handling and ride comfort 

Being taller, wider and longer than the Renault 5, the Renault 4 doesn’t exactly scream ‘hot hatch’, but you wouldn't want it to in the first place. 

Steering is responsive, making it great around town, and it still feels stable when you reach motorway speeds.  

Speaking of faster speeds, there’s a lot of wind noise coming from the door mirrors, so you do need to turn your music up a bit to drown it out... 

On a country road, it’s not as fun to drive as some other small EVs, but it’s certainly spritely enough.  

Weighing less than 1,500kg, it’s relatively light on its feet, and the clever multi-link rear suspension does a lot of the heavy lifting around tighter corners. 

Boot space 

Boot space is where the Renault 4 comes into its own. Like the original, it gets lots of space for your shopping, luggage and even small pets. 

The new car gets 420 litres (90 litres more than the Renault 5) with 60:40 split rear seats, letting you slide longer objects through the cabin.  

What’s even more clever is the front passenger seat, which can fold completely flat to create a 2.2-metre loading area. Sadly, this won’t be in the UK car, though.  

Under the boot floor is an extra 55 litres of space to store the charging cables and other loose ends. It also has a removable plastic tray that you can wash out if needed. 

Sadly, there’s no froot (front boot) like you get in most rivals.  

But there are two features that more than make up for this. The first is a powered boot door (something the ‘5’ doesn’t get), and the second is a low loading lip, which is great for loading heavier objects or for dogs jumping in the boot. 

Rear seats 

Rear seats are a similar story to the Renault 5. Shorter people won’t have any issues, but taller passengers may struggle to get comfortable on longer drives. 

However, we found a secret hack that allows taller people to fit more comfortably. If you option the ‘plein sud’ electric canvas roof, the cut out for it creates more space for your head. It’s not a lot, but it helps make a difference. 

And for those longer journeys, your passengers get two USB-C charge ports to top up their devices on the go. 

Storage solutions 

Overall storage is decent in the Renault 4. 

In the front, you get two cup holders, a wireless phone charger area and a small indent next to the handbrake switch, which doesn’t fit anything we can think of. Let us know if you know what it’s for. 

The door bins are a bit disappointing, with about enough space for a small water bottle, although the rear door bins are slightly better. 

Between the passenger and driver, there’s a central armrest with a bit more storage inside. We found it to be big enough for a smartphone, wallet, passport, two pairs of sunglasses and some mints, so not bad at all for a little car. 

The glovebox isn’t the best, but it can fit a pair of driving gloves (if that’s your style) and a few more small things.  

Safety 

Like all car manufacturers, Renault takes safety very seriously, so the ‘4’ is packed with all you could ever need. 

Some of these include adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, automatic emergency braking and a speed warning chime.  

Usually in modern cars, these safety features can be a bit tricky to turn off, which sometimes you may want to do.  

But the Renault 4’s ‘My Safety’ switch lets you choose which safety features are on when that mode is engaged. It’s a little thing but saves you from selecting and deselecting settings as you drive.  

The car is still too new to be independently safety tested by Euro NCAP, but its Renault 5 sibling scored four out of five stars, with 80% protection scores for both adult and child occupants. 

Range and charging times 

As we touched on above, the Renault 4 will only come with one battery option from launch – a 52kWh unit with 247 miles of range. 

We’d have liked a little more range with it being priced higher than the Renault 5, but this will be more than enough for most people’s daily duties. 

It can charge up to 11kW with AC inputs and up to 100kW DC rapid charging, giving you 80% battery in around 30 minutes. 

In our testing over a few hundred miles, we achieved 4.2mi/kWh across a variety of city, countryside and motorway driving. That’s only slightly less than what we got in the smaller Renault 5 from similar driving.  

Reliability 

Renault’s not new to electric cars, and it certainly isn’t new to building vehicles in general, so we expect the Renault 4 to be very dependable. 

Firstly, it’s an electric car and has fewer parts that could fail than in an internal combustion engine. 

Secondly, if the Renault 5, Zoe or Twizy are anything to go by, little to nothing will creep up and go wrong. 

All new Renaults get a rather standard three-year warranty, and if you buy a used one from us, you can add cinchCover for extra protection for what matters to you.