If you are 14 years old and live in France, you’re allowed to drive this electric car

While one’s teenage years aren’t often associated with the best years of one’s life, being 14 — and living in France — does have its perks.

That’s because it is now legal for this generation of teenager to drive a Renault Twizy, a $7,600 “car”.

The term “car” is, of course, being used loosely here. The Twizy is actually a 1,000-pound, 2-seat electric vehicle designed as an alternative to using bicycles and scooters to get around cramped European cities. It features a 13-horsepower electric motor and enough battery life to go a distance of miles while travelling at the maximum speed of 50MPH. 

While there’s not much room when it comes to cargo, the Twizy does feature airbags, two seats, headlights, and turn signals. 

Previously, 14-year-old French nationals with a road safety certificate were allowed to ride mopeds about the country. Now, in order to comply with recently updated European Union regulations, this same certificate allows its holder to drive “quadricycles”, a grouping that, with some minor tweaking, the Twizy falls under.

Per the regulation, quadricycles are four-wheeled cars that can’t exceed 28MPH, don’t have a battery pack bigger than 4kWh (that’s for electric engines—for gas / diesel versions, the engine can’t be bigger than 50cc), and can’t exceed 770 pounds curb weight.

Now I’m sure you just compared those qualifiers with the Twizy stats presented before and noticed more than one inconsistency. And you’re right — the existing Twizy is not a quadricycle. But to accommodate the new market, Renault will release a special, scaled down, slower version of this line of car, er, quadricycle, geared towards the young driver.

For those curious about owning a Twizy here in the States, do note that Renault left the country in 1987 to focus solely on its European audience. Reports are the company is exploring the possibility of introducing the Twizy to Quebecians, though nothing official has been confirmed. 

The only possibility of the Twizy making its way across the pond would be vis-à-vis Renault’s partnership with Nissan. By and large, small cars have not done well here though, so the chances of Renault actually doing all the work to break into this market just to see its car flop are probably pretty slim. 

Via Wired