Ranked #301 car in the UK · Hatchback (EV) · 8,541 units sold last year
The Renault 5 E-Tech reinvents the beloved 1980s hatchback as a stylish, affordable electric supermini - and it has become one of Europe's best-selling EVs. Built on a dedicated small-EV platform with 40kWh or 52kWh batteries, it pairs genuine retro charm with a comfortable drive, a quality cabin and keen pricing from around 23,000 pounds. A fun, fashionable and sensibly-priced city-and-suburb EV that deservedly won a wall of awards.
WLTP
The short version
Forecourt score
Value 1 · Reliability 47 · Insurance 47
The Renault 5 E-Tech loses value faster than most cars and costs about average to run. Its MOT-based reliability is good, 72 out of 100, ahead of 47% of the cars we track. On three-year value retention it ranks better than 1% of models.
The Forecourt score blends how this car ranks against the catalogue on value retention, reliability and insurance cost (weighted 40/40/20). Higher is better; running cost is not yet folded in.
Eligible for £3,750 off — UK Electric Car GrantBand 1
Applied at point of sale by the dealer — no application needed. Details on gov.uk.
Estimates are tuned to the version you choose.
Fuel
Electric
Power
150 ps
Drivetrain
FWD
Efficiency
4.3 mi/kWh
The volume Renault 5 E-Tech (2024-) - the retro hatch that reset expectations for affordable EVs. 52 kWh, 150 PS, ~250 mi WLTP. Heat pump standard. Genuinely brilliant to drive.
Tidy and well looked-after for its age — the typical car.
Remembered as you browse other cars.
Optional — fills in the exact year and ULEZ status for your specific car. The registration isn’t stored.
Estimated market value
How we got this number — click for the breakdown, or to challenge it.£15,500
Range £12,250 – £19,100
medium confidence
How a 2024-registration Renault 5 E-Tech loses value over time.
Based on the 2024 car with 16,000 miles you entered above — worth about £15,500 today — here is the cost of owning it for the next 5 years, at roughly 8,000 miles a year.
5-year total
£15,118
Per year
£3,024
All-in per mile
£0.38
Fuel per mile
6.6p
If a company carAround £26/mo Benefit-in-Kind tax at the 40% rate (£13/mo at 20%) — 3% band (EV)
If you're a company-car driver
At 3% BIK, this would cost a 40% taxpayer about £26/month in company-car tax (£13/month at 20%) — one of the strongest cases for choosing an EV via salary sacrifice. Full BIK table below for context.
Best age to buy — around 6 years
A 6-year-old example loses roughly £1,300 a year — under half the £3,650 a one-year-old sheds. The steepest drop is behind it.
Uses current UK pump and home-charging prices (DESNZ weekly), typical-driver insurance and manufacturer service intervals. "Fuel per mile" is just the energy input — so an EV at ~9p and a diesel at ~22p make running-cost comparison direct. A guide; your own costs will vary.
Where this car ranks against the 340 vehicles in our index — higher is better.
Percentile rank across our full index. A measure is shown only where the data spreads meaningfully across the index.
How the available versions compare on price, running cost, and the headaches each tends to develop.
Top-spec — full kit, retro-styled details, 245-mile WLTP range. The image-leader of the lineup, priced to match. Hard to beat for residual value.
Watch for
The value pick — 250-mile WLTP, almost-full kit, ~£2.5k less than Iconic Five. Best new-buy proposition.
Watch for
Urban / short-commute trim. Cheapest way into the R5 lineup at £23k, but the 40 kWh battery makes motorway trips frequent-stop affairs.
Watch for
Fuel/energy costs based on this week’s UK averages (w/c 22/06/2026) · Petrol 153.3p/L, Diesel 172.5p/L, Electricity 27.0p/kWh · DESNZ
Group 23 of 50 (mid — around the UK average) · Comprehensive · 3 years NCB
Indicative annual comprehensive premiums for this car, by driver age band and risk profile. Pick the combination closest to your circumstances.
Estimated annual premium · typical, age 33-39
£1,108/ year
Roughly £92 per month
Typical
Average UK driver — 3 years NCB, average postcode, no recent claims.| Age band | Lower risk | Typical | Higher risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Age 17-25 | £2,526 | £3,158 | £4,105 |
| Age 26-32 | £1,319 | £1,551 | £1,892 |
| Age 33-39Selected | £975 | £1,108 | £1,307 |
| Age 40-49 | £828 | £920 | £1,067 |
| Age 50+ | £738 | £820 | £968 |
How we estimate this
Indicative annual comprehensive premium estimates. The 'Typical' figure represents an average UK driver in each age band; Lower and Higher risk show the realistic spread driven by factors UK insurers legitimately price on (postcode, occupation, claims history, NCB, voluntary excess, modifications). Based on 10,000 miles/yr, £250 voluntary excess, and the no-claims bonus selected above. Always get individual quotes before buying.
Adjust the annual mileage to match how you'll actually use the car. Insurance is what you selected above (age 33-39, typical risk, 3 yrs NCB).
Routine service
£240
Annual main-dealer service
Major service
£200
Every 2 years, annualised
Road tax
£195
Standard rate, post year-one
Electricity
£502
4.1 mi/kWh, 27p blended
Insurance
£1,108
Age 33-39, group 23
Clean-air zones
✓ ULEZ compliantBased on London ULEZ standards — Birmingham, Bath, Bristol, Sheffield, Glasgow and other UK clean-air zones generally follow the same rules.
Excludes depreciation and unscheduled repairs (see next section).
Drawn from owner reports and warranty data. Filtered for relevance to 16,000 miles.
Watch now
Failure typically happens around your current mileage.
Upcoming
A known weak point — but you haven't reached its usual mileage yet.
Already due
Past its usual failure mileage. Either already fixed, or about to.
Most-cited owner complaint at launch. Symptoms include navigation crashes, Assistant unresponsive, screen flicker. Multiple OTA updates address. Check firmware version at PDI.
Some chargepoint network/firmware combinations fail first handshake. Re-plug usually works.
Renault TSB updates 12V management firmware. Resolves intermittent wake failures.
Front door seal noise above 60 mph. Cosmetic.
Emergency release in boot if electronic latch sticks.
"Parts low/medium/high" indicates how easy the replacement part is to source — discontinued or specialist parts mean longer workshop time and bigger bills.
Euro NCAP's independent crash-test rating for the Renault 5 E-Tech, from its 2024 assessment.
The passenger compartment of the Renault 5 remained stable in the frontal offset test.
Independent crash-test data from Euro NCAP. Star ratings reflect the test protocol of the year shown — newer protocols are stricter, so a 5-star from 2024 represents a higher bar than a 5-star from 2014.
Good
Estimated from segment/platform - too new for MOT data
MOT outlook
Insufficient MOT history at this car's reference age — too few tests to compute a reliable percentile.
Safety recalls
Manufacturers occasionally issue safety recalls to fix a fault free of charge. You can check whether the Renault 5 E-Tech, or your exact vehicle, has any outstanding recalls on the official DVSA service.
Check on GOV.UKOpens the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency recall checker. Choose the make, model and year of manufacture — no registration needed.
A general indicator from UK 2025 theft data and this car’s characteristics — not a prediction for any one vehicle.
Whole-car theft
Around average
Theft risk is around the UK average. Like most modern cars it has keyless entry, so relay theft is the method to guard against.
Parts theft
Lower
As an electric car it has no catalytic converter, so the most common parts-theft vector doesn't apply.
Worth doing
Whether driving a Renault 5 E-Tech into a UK clean-air zone will cost you anything. Rules use the same Euro standard across most zones — petrol from 2006 and diesel from 2015 onwards are exempt; pure electric is always exempt.
| City | Area | Daily charge | Likely outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | All of Greater London (within the M25) | £12.50 | Likely exempt Battery-electric — exempt everywhere. |
| Birmingham | Inside the A4540 Middleway | £8.00 | Likely exempt Battery-electric — exempt everywhere. |
| Bristol | City centre and part of the Portway | £9.00 | Likely exempt Battery-electric — exempt everywhere. |
| Glasgow | City centre | — | Likely exempt Battery-electric — exempt everywhere. |
| Edinburgh | City centre | — | Likely exempt Battery-electric — exempt everywhere. |
| Aberdeen | City centre | — | Likely exempt Battery-electric — exempt everywhere. |
| Dundee | City centre | — | Likely exempt Battery-electric — exempt everywhere. |
Model-level guidance only. To check a specific registration, use the official gov.uk clean-air zone checker. Zone charges and boundaries are set by local councils and change over time.
Winter range estimates assume ~5°C ambient with cabin heating; figures from manufacturer cold-weather testing where available, otherwise derived as a fraction of WLTP. DC times are manufacturer-claimed 10–80% on the headline charger; real-world sessions on UK rapids can be slower. Charging cost is a full battery at the home/blended electricity rate; public rapid charging costs more.
UK charging network
As of 2026-04-01, the UK has 119,080 publicly available EV chargers, up 12.6% on the prior year (13,281 added in 2025). 23% of those are rapid (50 kW+) or ultra-rapid (150 kW+), so the network can support both home and on-route charging.
3-8 kW
50%
Standard
8-50 kW
27%
Standard plus
50-150 kW
12%
Rapid
150 kW+
11%
Ultra-rapid
Source: Department for Transport / Zapmap · Released 2026-05-21 · DfT statistics
What HMRC's Benefit-in-Kind charge looks like if you ran this Renault 5 E-Tech as a company car, by tax year and income-tax band. Calculated from a CO₂ of 0 g/km and a WLTP electric range of 245 miles, using £25,500 as the P11D value.
EVs sit at the bottom BIK band — currently 3% — so this is one of the cheapest ways to take a company car.
| Tax year | BIK % | Tax @ 20% | Tax @ 40% | Monthly @ 20% | Monthly @ 40% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 3% | £153 | £306 | £13 | £26 |
| 2026-27 | 4% | £204 | £408 | £17 | £34 |
| 2027-28 | 5% | £255 | £510 | £21 | £43 |
| 2028-29 | 7% | £357 | £714 | £30 | £60 |
| 2029-30 | 9% | £459 | £918 | £38 | £77 |
P11D value is approximated from the latest new price; the exact figure on your tax code will depend on options fitted. The 4% diesel surcharge applies only to non-RDE2 (pre-2021) diesels — we assume RDE2 compliance for current models. Bands and rates from HMRC's Autumn Budget 2024 confirmation through 2029/30.
How well-supported Renault is across the UK — a practical read on how easy servicing, parts and warranty work will be to find.
Franchised UK dealers
~140
Large network
Mass-market
Network size relative to the UK's largest (Renault is 3.1% of all franchised outlets)
Servicing, parts and warranty work are easy to find UK-wide, and most independent garages know the brand well — which keeps maintenance competitive.
For context, the UK has roughly 4,500 franchised car-dealer outlets in total, plus about 15,500 independent garages.
Approximate figures, curated from public UK industry sources (NFDA, Car Dealer Magazine). Franchised networks shrink year on year — these indicate network size, not an exact count.
Of every Renault 5 E-Tech ever registered in the UK, this is what's actively on the road, parked off the road on a SORN, or gone for good.
Total ever registered
12,098
Currently taxed & on road
9,127
75% of all registered
SORN (off road)
2,971
25% of all registered
Scrapped or exported
0
UK fleet trend — 2014 to 2025
+1312.8% vs 2024Source: DfT VEH0124 vehicle licensing statistics (year-end 2025) · Updated 1 Jul 2026
Common questions
Similar cars
Same underpinnings
Shared B-segment platform across Renault, Nissan and Dacia. Supports petrol, hybrid and EV. Different badges, often substantially different residuals, but broadly the same mechanicals and repair cost profile.
Common Module Family B · Renault-Nissan Alliance
Common questions
Answers are generated from this car's Forecourt data — DVSA MOT records, DfT licensing statistics and our valuation model — and update with the weekly data refresh.
