Nissan is sending 10 Renault Twizys Nissan New Mobility Concept vehicles to San Francisco as part its citywide ride sharing service Scoot.
The small, all-electric Renault Twizy Scoot Quad will seat two people, have a range of roughly 40 miles and a top speed of 25 mph. The cars will cost $8 per ride or $80 per day to rent.
According to Nissan, the cars are being sent to the ride-sharing service to study transportation in urban areas — and to see if they can sell them anywhere else, probably.
“As large cities continue to grow into megacities globally, we need to understand how transportation is changing and look ahead to anticipate what transportation needs will look like in the future,” Rachel Nguyen, executive director of the Nissan Future Lab, said in a statement.
According to the automaker, the first Nissan Leaf sold in the U.S. was delivered to San Francisco.
Getting the Twizy in America isn’t as onerous as, say, getting a gray-market Skyline R34 across the border — or Mercedes B Class — but it is fairly pain-in-the-ass-ish. Nissan has made the Twizy available for selected fleets, including Scoot, but the car is still fairly rare in America.
The Twizy can be purchased as a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle — not licensed for the roads — but the car’s batteries are leased through Renault, which means you’d need a European bank account to pay the lease every month.
Our neighbors to the north already announced they’d attempt to sell the Twizy with its original badging. A private distributor, Azra Network, also owns an EV charging network in the province of Quebec.
(Presumably the same two people won’t be driving the cars everywhere around town with the same looks on their faces.)
T-Rex trike please
They are sold here in Europe for approx. 8500usd. And then you have to rent the batteries from 60 usd/month.
I took one from the local Volvo/Renault dealer for a test ride. The version we have here is legally a four wheeled motorcycle, you can drive it with a car licence and w/o helmet. Maximum speed is approx 44 mph.
I went out on the road (even though the vehicle is made for city driving)and when I came back I had driven 19 miles and was almost out of charge.
I don’t believe in electric cars (except for rich people in LA with several other cars when going longer distances and only if someone else pays), hybrids yes. But this type of vehicle make sense. I wont buy one though.
Scoot’s main business in SF is renting electric scooters via a city bike type system. Much more popular than you would think. From what I recall, the scooters are very very cheap to rent and the pickup/drop off system is very easy.
I’m an SF resident and the growth of Scoot here has been very strong. Their scooters are a great way to get around a city where parking is a disaster, two-wheeled vehicles can lane split in traffic, and the hills are too steep for most people to pedal a bike.
I’m too old and broken-bone averse to ride a scooter anymore, so to me, the Twizy is perfect. It’s also a really nifty design and fun to drive in a Little Tikes cart kind of way. I was noodling how to get one registered in Cali as a kit car, but Scoot solves this for me.
As an around-town adjunct to my V-8 dreadnought, it’s perfect. Sign me up.
Is that Jack driving? I knew it! He’s really been a dirty, granola eating, San Francisco liberal this whole time.
A little cleverness with the right colored fabric and you could turn one into an awesome Scrubbing Bubble for trick or treating!
At $8 a ride I’ll stick with Uber/Lyft.
Seriously? An international company like Renault couldn’t care enough to set up an account to take money from US customers and expect individuals to set up a EU bank account in order to lease the battery? That level of “customer service”, arrogance, and laziness is just, wow.
Good luck if your car breaks down, maybe you’ll have to fly to Paris and carry the parts back yourself.
Who’s Ready for Safe Fun?
yeah that side impact rating like safe fun
$80 a day? come on… you can rent a real car, with doors and windows
Great… Just what we need – another hipster mobile.