Renault Twingo review

Cheerful, is the first impression. Strips of plastic echo the exterior colour, and the seat fabric is graduated lighter towards the top, which makes it look bigger and brighter. Embossed Twingo logo lettering appears all over the place, even the headlining.

The driver's post feels spacious as this is wider than most baby cars. It takes a while to master the steering wheel and column. As well as the wheel buttons, you've a lighting stalk, wiper stalk, drive selector stalk, regen paddles and quite a busy stereo control stalk. Better than on a screen mind.

In front is the instrument screen which has the essential info. The main touchscreen is configurable and snappy, and has a good online route planner. It has the wit to know when you'll need charging, by examining hills and likely speeds on the roads ahead, as well as checking the chargers are free.

Heating and vent controls are actual twist knobs with mini displays in their centre, which takes significant load off the screen. There are vents only at the end of the dash not the middle too, but they're breathy enough.

How roomy is it actually?

Those two back seats slide fore-aft by 17cm. Slid back for grown-ups, the boot shrinks to 260 litres (including 50 litres under the floor) but the legroom is like a much bigger car's.

For a baby seat it's a fantastic idea. The kid needs no legroom, so you pull their seat forward and feed them snacks. It frees up another 100 litres of boot space for their clobber. The biological requirements of a toddler will always prevent you travelling non-stop for long enough to deplete even a 27.5kWh battery.

At various places round the cabin are Dacia-type YouClip plastic anchorages for phone holders, torches, litter bins and the like. You can also order an accessory zip-up centre armrest/storage between the front seats.

There are no soft plastics in the cabin. But it looks good and perhaps its only road testers who rap the dash with their knuckles to measure 'quality'.

Oh and unlike the first Twingo it's a proper five-door, so you won't have rear cabin access troubles.