NISSAN Renting Electric Twizy in San
Francisco
By: Mohamed Adel
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!
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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