Anyone accusing New Yorkers of being cold, indifferent, and self-important is only correct about the last part. New York is the greatest city in the world, so New Yorkers should be excused for any superiority they feel over those who live outside the five boroughs. But New Yorkers are neither cold nor indifferent. When they see something they like (or don’t), you’ll know about it. For instance, when I whipped Nissan’s New Mobility Concept around Manhattan, cyclists and cab drivers and otherwise dumbfounded citizens fell in love with all 92 inches of it.
“It’s a lot smarter than the f**king Smart car,” exclaimed one cyclist, peering down into the tiny bubble cabin.
Maybe it is. The New Mobility Concept is a rebadged Renault Twizy (we’ll call it Twizy from here on out). Yet another strangely endearing French design from Nissan’s corporate partner, the Twizy has been on sale in Europe since 2011 as a quad/microcar/neighborhood electric vehicle. Looking somewhat like a motorized Little Tikes CozyCoupe, the Twizy is 14.1 inches stubbier and 16.8 inches narrower than a Smart Fortwo. Nissan just started renting these cutesy buggies by the hour in San Francisco, and while it has no intention of offering them elsewhere in the U.S., the company’s PR staff packed a bunch in their suitcases so New Yorkers could gawk at them during the city’s auto show week.
“That’s great, you’re not polluting the f**king air. Good for you!” said a man who appeared to be 10 feet tall.
Every person appears to be freakishly big when they have to bend down to congratulate you on taking the 1045-pound Twizy through Manhattan traffic. When they realize a second person can sit tandem-style behind the driver, the phone cameras come out. And that’s without my revealing the Twizy’s true innovations, like the scissor doors or the driver’s twin seat belts, in which a secondary belt slips over the right shoulder like a backpack strap in order to reduce head and torso movement in a side-impact crash. (There’s a frontal airbag, too.)
I appreciate those devices during my maiden voyage, since the Twizy is hardly bigger than the potted plant it was parked next to on the sidewalk. This is a test of vulnerability, a Manhattan version of Tom Hanks drifting in the ocean on a yellow emergency raft. That’s why I chose the yellow Twizy.
“I can put that in my trunk,” a cab driver said while we were both turning onto Eighth Avenue.
I resist pulling onto the sidewalk and dumbfounding him even more. At this point, minutes into the drive, I’m weaving in and out of traffic holes in Times Square, zipping through pedestrian crossings with the gusto of a Crown Vic. But the only time Manhattanites get upset is when they hear Nissan isn’t selling it here. In Europe, the car costs less than $10,000 and buyers lease the battery from Renault for a monthly fee, not unlike a cell phone contract.
Underneath the Twizy’s moon-buggy funk is a 17-hp electric motor powering the rear wheels; it’s fed by a 61-kWh lithium-ion battery that somehow is good for only 40 miles, despite having twice the capacity of the one in the Nissan Leaf. Compared to the European version, top speed is cut in half to 25 mph, per U.S. regulations governing low-speed EVs.
Without side windows or insulation and with the asphalt vibrating my ankles through the plastic floorboard, that speed feels more like 55 mph. I punch the Twizy through a chain of yellow lights on Seventh Avenue, flat out. It’s the Mulsanne straight with Chinese restaurants. Then a Prius taxi in my draft suddenly stops, rightfully so, for the next yellow, and I do too. With the pedal mashed, the Twizy’s mushy regenerative braking setup disappears and the anvil drops. These binders are truly mall cop–worthy.
The steering effort is fairly high at low speeds, just like an E92 3-series. The unassisted rack has all the accuracy of a butter churner, but it’s refreshingly alive and full of road feel, allowing you to count every expansion plate and sewer grate on each block. Another cab driver in a yellow Nissan—New York City’s “Taxi of Tomorrow,” the NV200 van—is amazed I can keep up.
So, is this the future of urban driving? It doesn’t appear to be, at least not in the SUV-clogged United States. But the Twizy is safer than a bicycle, quicker than walking, and is really all anyone needs to cut across a major city, provided you’re smart enough to avoid the freeways. If New Yorkers can smile at this little thing, the rest of the country would probably welcome it more readily than Nissan thinks.
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