Renault's four electric Frankfurt stars: the teaser

Renault will show off four electric cars at the 2009 Frankfurt motor show

By Tim Pollard

First Official Pictures

10 September 2009 17:18

Renault today trailed its electric car debutants for next week's Frankfurt motor show – revealing the four battery cars that will hog the limelight in Germany. The Renault zero-emissions cars will be shown in full on Tuesday 15 September 2009, but this image gives us a taster for what's to come.

Carlos Ghosn, Renault's chief exec, will unveil four new electric cars, seen here for the first time. This overhead shot confirms that Renault will unveil a range of EVs – from a tiny city car through a supermini and van all the way up to what looks like an electric saloon car.

Electric cars: the theme of Frankfurt

Plenty of manufacturers will be showing off electric or petrol-electric cars at Frankfurt's IAA this year: there's an electric Merc SLS and Hyundai i10, plus more hybrids than you could shake a socket at – including debuts from Lexus, Peugeot and BMW. But it's Renault which will steal the limelight with a broad range of fully electric vehicles, which look mostly production ready.

We've already reported that there will be a Kangoo EV, presumably the second-from-right in this photograph. And this EV technology isn't far off – Renault will start selling these battery cars from 2012.

Renault's electric tech

There will be commonality between the Nissan Leaf, unveiled this summer, and the electric Renaults. We don't yet know the full tech story, but studying our previous stories we can jigsaw together a theme of lithium ion batteries and quick-charge solutions.

And Renault is on record as saying its electric cars won't be uber expensive. Rather they will be pitched at a similar price as a contemporary, state-of-the-art common-rail turbodiesel.

Make no mistake, Renault is deadly serious about producing electric vehicles in numbers; it predicts that by 2015 nearly a third of its sales will be of EVs.

>> Come back to CAR Online next week for all the news from Frankfurt

By Tim Pollard