Now after all the battery talk let’s have a closer took at the battery box in the Renault Twingo. The battery box is located on the rear of the car, just behind the rear axle, where on a petrol version the fuel tank and the spare wheel would sit.
The box has been located in a cutout of the floorpan in a way that half of the box is below the floorpan and half of the box is above. The total height of the box is about 30 cm.
In the first picture you can see the boot of the car:
In a petrol powered Twingo, the boot floor would be about 15 cm lower, here we are pretty level with the door sill. So let’s have a look what’s under the carpet:
So here we have a protection cover over the actual battery box. And in the picutre, you can also see the only disadvantage of the battery box location: On a normal Twingo, the rear bench can be moved forward and backwards to either gain more space in the boot or backwards to allow for more legroom. This was actually one of the iconic features of the first series Twingo, when sliding the rear bench completely back the rear passengers would have more legroom than in the Renault 25! If you look at the picture here above and below you will see that the bench cannot be moved backwards as the battery box is protruding from the floor, so the seat is stuck in a middle position, which offers a good compromise between boot space and legroom. Here you can see the cover removed: That’s the shiny enclosure of the actual battery box.
In the next picture you can see the lower part of the same battery box from below the car. As you can see, the car doesn’t loose any ground clearance and the box is well protected by the rear axle and the chassis frame.
In the lower part of the picture, we can see the high voltage cabling running towards the front of the car, where the motor and power electronics are located.
