Woe to San Francisco as its grungy counter-culture vibe slips away. Haight Street, once a central meeting point for the nation’s hippies, now has a Tesla parked on every other block. But what’s this: a red Renault Twizy runabout zipping up and down the Mission District? Pure, unobstructed, weird freedom!
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Local scooter rental company Scoot, the Zipcar of electric mopeds, has added 10 Twizy “quads” to its 400-unit fleet, which is the first we’ve ever seen this pipsqueak, exotic golf cart on U.S. roads. Under the Renault-Nissan Alliance, the vehicle over here will be called the Nissan New Mobility Concept—even though they’re not new or conceptual.
-Renault has been selling Twizy EVs in Europe since 2012—we tried one briefly, and loved it—as an alternative to covered mopeds. The vehicle features a 1+1 seating design, a panoramic roof, a 20-hp electric motor, scissor doors, an airbag, and an innovative four-point seat belt that adds a sling-style belt to the driver’s right shoulder, thus keeping him or her from completely falling out of the Twizy in the event of a side-impact collision. In Europe, primarily registered as motorcycles, they top 50 mph and sell for the equivalent of about $8000 (in order to trim initial costs, Twizy owners must lease the battery packs from Renault).
-But over here, Nissan installed a 25-mph limiter to comply with federal regulations for neighborhood electric vehicles, where they’re allowed on any low-speed road (usually 35 mph or less) in at least 46 states. (Scoot’s other scooters can do 30 mph.) Nissan’s NMC version claims up to 40 miles of electric range, and unlike Zipcar, Scoot doesn’t require that NMC drivers return to the car’s original parking spot.
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The freaky wee Nissans are $8 per hour or $80 per day—no cheaper than a Zipcar Honda Fit that can be driven legally over the Golden Gate bridge and well beyond. In San Francisco’s heavily concentrated EV market, though, it may actually work—and could convince Scoot customers to upgrade to their very own, comparably rocket-like Nissan Leaf.
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