Fiat vs Renault – it’s an electric face-off

You’ll not have failed to notice that electric vehicles are now being thrown at us thick and fast, and I’m afraid to report that most I drive are still heavy, expensive, compromised and nothing like as good as the cars they’re intended to replace. Which may go some way to explaining why the public has been rather less welcoming of them than the government had either expected or wanted.

What I find interesting is that the most convincing EVs I’ve driven of late are not two-and-a-half tonne behemoths with six-figure price tags and four-figure power outputs, but those of decidedly more modest aspirations. Like these.

That the new Renault 4 is a terrific example of its art should be no great surprise. I’ve already written in glowing terms about the Renault 5 and this car is that car albeit clad in slightly more utilitarian clothes with a slightly longer wheelbase, more space in the back and, surprisingly perhaps, a slightly higher price model for model.

Those hoping for a charming, stripped out workhorse like the original 4 of 1961 will likely therefore be sorely disappointed. The top-of-the-range model I drove was lavishly equipped (a Renault 4 with an electrically powered tailgate would you believe?) and feels very grown-up to drive thanks to the hushed quiet of its electric powertrain and the sophistication of its multi-link rear suspension. It’s been made like this not just because there’s more money in it, but because were it cheap and cheerful all it would achieve would be to cannibalise sales from sister brand Dacia.

Still, I miss the honesty of the original. Although I always placed myself firmly in the 2CV camp, on the few occasions I drove an old R4, I always enjoyed it and even I had to concede that over a distance it was a hell of a lot better than the Citroën. I even forgave the one that turned over on me mid-banger race when nerfed off the track by a Volvo 144.

When faced with the perhaps more serious choice of it or a Renault 5, I’d go for the latter because I think it looks adorable, it’s a touch cheaper when compared directly, and a lot more affordable if you choose the smaller battery which Renault doesn’t make available on the 4.

There’s not really much of choice to make between the R4 and the other car here because the Renault is a class above the Fiat Grande Panda in both performance and price, if not interior space. But both turned up at approximately the same time and both provide high quality evidence of the point I’m trying to make.

Because the Panda is quite the best Fiat I’ve driven in years, possibly decades. I think it looks superb which of course primed me to expect the car here to be really disappointing to drive, but it’s not: no, it isn’t quick and doesn’t handle as well as the Renault, but the ride is superb and it bowls along the road with great willingness and no shortage of charm. And I’d say the Panda’s interior is far more interesting and actually works slightly better.

Of course both companies are responsible for producing some of the greatest small cars in history, which is why they’re able to plunder their heritage as brazenly as these cars do; but for once I really don’t mind. Because more often than not great names from the past are exhumed to try to sprinkle some stardust on an otherwise thoroughly undeserving car. Now I’m not saying that either the R4 or Panda are as great today as were the originals, but by the frankly pretty parlous state of the market they are in, both stand out, perhaps as much now as then. And after so many years of writing about how disappointing, unfit for purpose and undesirable modern EVs tend to be, it’s refreshing to be able to point to a few with which I genuinely enjoyed passing the time.

But they are still too expensive, their range too limited and charging opportunities too few and far between: indeed to anyone living in a house or flat on a terraced street anywhere in the UK, without off-street parking it’s still hard to see how one could make any sense at all.

“Fiat and Renault are once more making truly desirable small cars”

Just don’t blame the manufacturers for that. After too long assuming people will buy any old rubbish just because ultimately there isn’t a choice, by hanging onto their existing petrol cars the consumer has proven that there is. But now companies like Fiat and Renault are once more making truly desirable small cars – that just happen to also be electric – the consumer will be tempted like never before in the EV era.

And one more thing: faced with Renault and Fiat cornering the admittedly still small market for such cars, as they surely deserve to do, those who will actually find themselves without a choice are its rivals, who will have to drag themselves up to meet these new standards to the benefit of all, or simply be left behind.