Renault India looking at re-engineering Twizy for delivery services

Renault India is looking at how it can adapt the Twizy to meet the transportation need of food delivery players and e-commerce companies in India, EVW can reveal. The vehicle was presented at the Auto Expo in the ‘cargo’ specification, but the version for India would be stripped-down and made inexpensive.

Talking to EVW, Venkatram Mamillapalle, Head of Renault India Operations said:

The Twizy is for (customers like) Swiggy and Amazon. We are thinking about it (launching in India), so therefore we brought this car (to the Auto Expo). I don’t know if you have opened the cargo box hatch, but it is a very good option for them, that’s the market we can look at.

He said several changes need to be made to the vehicle for it to meet the demanding price target of the parcel delivery operator:

That’s something (cost) we need to work upon. This car (at the show) is super expensive. I don’t need these swinging doors, I want something simple for India and I don’t need the same airbag or seatbelt (of the European spec) as this is a quadricycle. We need to see how we can make this work. We have just brought the car, there is no homework yet, but we will think about it.

Renault pitches the Twizy as its idea of urban mobility without harming the environment and offers safety, comfort and free-moving mobility. It was launched in Europe in 2012 and is manufactured in South Korea for global markets. Last October, the company said that it was looking at expanding sales of the Twizy in Asian markets from its South Korean plant.

The Twizy is a fully electric funky two-seater that is compact and offers quick and easy trips through the city lanes. It makes a maximum power of 13 kW, peak torque of 57 Nm and achieves a top speed of 80 km/h. The vehicle measures 2.34 m in length and 1.24 m in width, has a very low centre of gravity and a turning radius of 3.4 m.

The Twizy is equipped with disc brakes all-round, a front airbag and four-point harness for the driver and a three-point seat belt for the passenger, two dash-mounted glove boxes (3.5 and 5 litres), a 12V power supply, and a 31-litre stowage compartment behind the passenger seat.

The battery of Twizy can be charged to full capacity in 3 hours and 30 minutes from a domestic power socket (UK). Twizy’s automatic gearbox is connected to an energy recovery system that charges the battery and increases the range when the brakes are applied or the foot is lifted from the accelerator.