Renault’s New 5 Turbo 3E Is an All-Electric ‘Mini-Supercar’

The Renault 5 Turbo 2 is a legendary car from a time 40 years ago when hot hatchbacks were perhaps at their peak. On Monday, Renault debuted a sequel: the Renault 5 Turbo 3E, an all-electric 540 hp hot hatch set for limited production in 2027.

Renault says it will make just 1,980 units of the 5 Turbo 3E, which it calls the first “mini-supercar.” Renault defines that as a “new class of vehicle,” which will be news to every other hot hatch in the world, but, no matter: The 5 Turbo 3E is the kind of all-electric car that certain enthusiasts have been begging for. The 540 horsepower is produced with in-wheel motors and can rocket the car from zero to 62 mph in less than 3.5 seconds. The 5 Turbo 3E is properly short, or about 13.4 feet long, but also properly broad, or about 6.7 feet wide.

“With these dimensions,” Renault says in a press release, the “Renault 5 Turbo 3E has the length of a city car for the width of a supercar.”

Renault has given a lot of thought to aerodynamics in an effort to balance downforce for cornering with effective weight distribution between front and rear, while also sending air to the rear brakes to facilitate cooling. The Renault 5 Turbo 3E has two doors and only seats two people, with the battery underneath the floor. The car weighs less than 3,200 pounds—quite light for an electric—and has carbon fiber in various spots to keep that number down.

The 800-volt architecture is capable of charging the battery from 15 percent to 80 percent in 15 minutes, hopefully after doing hot laps on the track of up to 167 mph, of which Renault says the Turbo 5 3E can do “several.” Renault did not give a price, but it’s thought to be well over €100,000 (or around $110,000); the car is to be sold in Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and Japan, but not the U.S.

When it is delivered, the 5 Turbo 3E has a significant legacy to live up to, since the Renault 5 Turbo 2 is one of the most collectible cars built after 1980. The 5 Turbo 2 was a hot hatchback built in an era when there were a lot of hot hatchbacks, like the Peugeot 205 GTi and the Volkswagen Golf GTI. Hot hatch buyers can even convince themselves that they are practical, too, given the storage space in the rear, including with the 5 Turbo 3E.

They often deliver a stealthy sort of power on the road, or, just as often, wear their intentions on their sleeves, like with the Renault 5 Turbo 3E. Owners might also want to announce that they are one of the lucky few buyers, which is a supercar thing to do after all.

Click here for more photos of the Renault 5 Turbo 3E.

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