Excited chatter and laughter were resounding in the night air as we turned into my friends’ street. Mobile phone cameras were flashing. Few cars could draw such a throng. People who would not even notice a Ferrari were elbowing to get a better look inside this tiny, high-domed two-seater that makes a Smart car look like a lorry.
It helped the crowd nosing around that my Twizy had doors but no windows; cheaper versions have no sides at all. As it was so evidently unsafe to park on the street, my friends asked the vicar of the church opposite to open his gated car park. I then had to insert my large body into the midget Twizy through its scissor door and figure out how to get it going, which made everyone fall about. The stages of start-up for this all-electric vehicle are obvious, as is the push-button transmission selector on the dashboard that simply offers D for a single-speed drive, N for neutral and R for reverse. But it took me about three minutes to wangle the parking-brake free, during which one of the audience declared that this show was better than the movies.
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| Renault |
It’s fair to say, then, that life with a Twizy is one hassle after another – as it proved the next day when I took it out on the streets of London.
I had asked to borrow it while I was in London for the Olympics, thinking that such a tiny quadricycle, with a top range of 60 miles and a recharge time of three and a half hours, would be ideal for negotiating the clogged city streets. Wrong. Its makers describe the Twizy as being “unlike anything else on the road” but, to my mind, it combines all the most troublesome aspects of car, motorbike and bicycle.
Dave, look at this”, yelled a scaffolder to his colleague as I passed below on Monday. “Wassat?”, his colleague replied. “Dunno; Renault,” said the first man, as they squinted from their lofty perch. The Twizy electric quadricycle must be doing wonders for the French brand – it’s the first time in years anyone has so much as glanced at a Renault, and I had small boys pointing, mothers laughing, men staring.
The Twizy is small with cheeky looks and room for two adults sitting in tandem, although the harsh ride will knock your fillings out. It’s clearly for urban living, with a top range of 60 miles, a top speed of 50mph and two bars replacing proper doors. In many ways, the driving experience is more akin to being on a bike, so, being a biker too, I tried out my Monday morning commute in it, a journey of 10 miles. And that’s when the problems of ownership became apparent.
In every way, this car is unsuited to someone living in a town or city, which is exactly the person it’s meant for. The lack of windows means you can’t leave a resident’s parking permit on the dash and expect it to be there when you come back. Furthermore, most urban dwellers live in flats or on busy roads, which makes plugging the car’s domestic three-pin plug into a socket in your house impossible.
The charge time is three and a half hours, which is useless. It would be more helpful if it was 12 hours, then at least you could leave it overnight at a charging point. My nearest charging point happened to be at a leisure centre, in a horrible area, an hour’s walk away. What do you then do for three and a half hours? Not wanting to recharge it, I crawled around town in the rainy gloom, operating the windscreen wipers manually when absolutely necessary and not wanting to put my lights on.
Lastly, you get the meteorological discomfort of a bike but not the benefit, because you can’t filter through traffic. I sat in a London traffic jam, my breath showing in the cold air, gazing enviously at commuters in their nice warm cars. 9
