Fully Charged: The small cheap electric car you actually want!

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• For those looking for relevant info, the dimensions are 392mm long x 177 mm wide x 154mm tall and the quoted price for Australia is AU$41,000, which is said to be 30% cheaper than the Renault Zoe (the first Renault EV to come here, which looks like it's been discontinued).

  • 392mm long! That's a small car 😏

    • Sorry - should read 3920 mm!

      • and for the other dimensions - 1770 mm wide x 1540 mm tall
        Thanks for calling attention to my errors.

  • “and the quoted price for Australia is AU$41,000”

    And @RickyPags Below said he rang his local Renault dealer and they told him it’s not coming to Oz.

  • a very high price for a small car, even if you add the zero to each mm size you quoted.
    To retrofit an existing ICE is about $20,000, so no competition yet.

• Jack looks different.

• The top 10 cheapest cars in Australia do not include Tesla.
  So clearly cheap is not what people want.

  • Otherwise referred to as affordable. Tesla M3 is becoming affordable NOW because that cheap offering is a challenge to ordinary people with certain basic equipment expectations.

  • Had a choice between 4-year old Tesla and new MG4 at the same price - I went with the Tesla.

    • you'll have plenty of time to rue that decision

    • Sounds like a good decision to me. I have a 5-year-old Model 3. Battery degradation is negligible, regular software updates keep the features current, and in all respects the car is holding up very well, so much so that we recently decided to put off any thoughts of an upgrade. A neighbour has an MG ZS EV which he says is "very basic". Enjoy your Tesla!

  • This is self-selection bias. People looking for cheap cars aren't buying new, period. They overwhelmingly buy used. Doubly so for the EV market.

    • I don't know what self selection bias is but we all perhaps need to go back to first principles.
      ie define: cheap, affordable, average person.
      I have a feeling that there will be vast differences of opinion. Even words like cheaper, which appears to be more easily defined amongst similar items can be misleading.
      Eg. This tomato is cheaper than the one next to it. If they look the same, how would you make that judgement?

• "Is this the most desirable small EV to date?"
  Simply put: yes 😁

• I rang the renault dealer in Adelaide to put my name down on a list to buy the car. No said the dealership, it's not coming to Oz. Can you confirm with renault if this is true.

  • And if not why the $#@*& not, please.

    • Sadly Renault doesn't have a significant footprint in Australia and isn't seen as an attractive addition to a multi franchise dealership network.... minimal selling at the affordable end with backup.

  • in NZ they only sell commercial vehicles now like the Trafic etc, so cars.

  • Renault's abysmal Australian representation was one of the things that killed the Zoe. The other was the unaccountable decision to send only an obsolete model to Australia. However good the Renault 5 might be, the competition from the Chinese is fierce. As a former Renault owner (10 and 12) I'd love to see a resurgence of the marque in this country.

• Australia would be flooded with affordable/cheap cars tomorrow if we would do one simple thing.

  Switch to driving on the right hand side.

  • people have enough trouble driving on the left!

  • 30% of the world drives on the left including the worlds 1st, 4th, 5th and 8th most populous countries. Converting Australia to the right would cost billions. It is not going to happen.

    • Interesting.
      If ANY of those countries was a mass producer of 'affordable' cars wanted for export, you might have a debatable argument.
      Most RHD markets are tiny affluent countries which is the only reason manufacturers even bother. (Hello Tesla, Cadillac etc etc)

      Population size is utterly irrelevant.

      Ps. The cost of converting to the right is also irrelevant. Huge swathes of Australians would welcome the opportunity to emulate their American heroes. Didn't we agree to buy two toxic submarines for 200 billion?
      We've got money to burn.

      • Japan, UK, Thailand, Indonesia, South Africa and India all manufacture and export cars. India has the second largest road network and the highest population in the world and that market for RHD vehicles is expected to grow at "a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.7% from 2023 to 2030".

        • India makes cars?
          For locals who drive slowly to avoid the cattle and therefore no need for safety standards.
          And anyway, a three wheeler shouldn't qualify as a 'car.'

      • “The cost of converting to the right is also irrelevant”

        Hardly. Government finances are limited. In the panoply of needs and issues that desperately need funding in this country, switching traffic sides would be almost at the bottom of the list.

        There is no universe in which this expense could be justified above every other expense facing government in health care, aged care, education, transport, welfare to the most needy, defence, etc etc.

        It would be fun to see you try to get elected on such a platform, and try to argue why this would be so much more important than all those other things.

        It would cost hundreds of billions if not over $1 Trillion to change. Every road sign, intersection, traffic light and freeway interchange in the country would need to be remodeled, rearranged, repainted.

        Some freeway interchanges are not symmetric and were designed to allow cars to exit to place X, but not enter from place X, for specific reasons. Those interchanges would no longer work if traffic was switched, and would need to be rebuilt.

        And then every legacy vehicle has its steering wheel on the wrong side…

        All for what? The possibility we might get a few more cars here?

        Close to the worst idea ever.

        • It's amazing people still think Australia is a small market for new cars. We are 14th in the world with 1,219,186 new vehicles every year. Theres not much difference between 3rd and 15th. China at 30 mil and US at 15 mil are the only standouts.

        • Are we still talking about RHD?
          The US part of your post would suggest not.
          Pointless post.

        • Hahaha!
          Never seen such a serious response to such a frivolous suggestion. In a way I'm almost flattered that you took it seriously but also dismayed that you took it seriously.
          [Note to self: don't assume that anyone on here has a sense of humour]

        • Sweden changed sides, but that was a long time ago.

      • One day we'll have driverless cars. Then we'll be able to switch the side of the road we drive on with a simultaneous software upgrade.

        • We have driverless cars now.
          As for the rest...
          why?...
          and never.

        • Not quite. Unfortunately the physical roads can't be changed via software update

        • Tell me you are not an IT Pro without telling me you are an IT Pro.

        • Gah, I shouldn't shitpost when on the beers. This of course was meant to read

          "Tell me you are not an IT Pro without telling me you are not an IT Pro".

        • Relax Scott!

          We all do it.

          Some of us read before posting, some read after posting, some edit, others try to edit (too late!) and some never return after their bushwhack.

          [That sprocket that appears on the bottom right of your new post means you have 30 minutes to edit. I just used it to add this. Great, eh?]