New Renault 4 Plein Sud review: unique soft-top EV is as French as it gets

Verdict

Being the only four-door electric convertible you can buy, the Renault 4 Plein Sud was always going to be a curiosity. But given the few compromises it brings over the already-great Renault 4, we feel this pseudo-soft top should be the de facto option for buyers of that car. It’s enjoyable to drive (even more so thanks to the opening roof), packed with tech, relatively practical and well priced. If the R4’s extra space wasn’t enough to tempt buyers away from the R5, the Plein Sud should have a better chance at doing so.

AS is often the case with second-borns, the Renault 4 has fallen under the radar compared with its sibling, the R5, which arrived a few months earlier. Sales figures show British buyers haven’t appeared to be quite as taken by the larger R4, despite the fact it offers the same retro charm and great drive as the top-selling Renault 5, but in a more practical package.

To try and shift the spotlight, Renault has devised an all-new R4 variant, this time tapping into the not exactly booming convertible SUV market. The result is the Renault 4 Plein Sud with its electrically retractable fabric roof. A recipe for failure? Well, from our first impressions, we think it’s quite the opposite.

Used - available now

2025 Renault

4

AutomaticElectric

Cash £28,634

View 4

2025 Renault

4

AutomaticElectric

Cash £25,995

View 4

Factoring in the Government’s £3,750 Electric Car Grant, the Plein Sud is priced from £27,445. That’s £1,500 more than a comparable R4 – you can’t get the soft-top in base evolution+ trim – and feels like a worthwhile upgrade, especially considering a similar retractable roof arrangement on the Fiat 500e will set you back double.

Don’t go expecting the full convertible experience, mind; as with the petrol-powered Toyota Aygo X, the roof opening only extends as far as the rear footwell. Retracting it takes only a press of a toggle switch mounted next to the front dome lights, although this can be finicky, sometimes requiring you to hold the button down as the roof whirs backwards.

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With the fabric top fully retracted, the roughly 0.7 square-metre opening does wonders in brightening up the R4’s cabin which, while certainly far from gloomy, can’t quite match the R5’s vivid yellow upholstery. That said, we’re fans of the blue denim, as well as the houndstooth-leather combo you get on the techno+ and iconic+ models, respectively.

Yet while the opening roof provides a greater sense of space, it can’t disguise the fact it impacts rear headroom; average-sized adults will only have a couple of centimetres from the top of their head to the ceiling. Legroom is pretty good for this class of car, though, with the twin USB-C ports and flip-up ISOFIX child-seat anchors handy for families. The advantage of not making the Plein Sud a full convertible is that boot space remains unaffected, at 339 litres, which we found enough for three or four carry-on suitcases.

All of this means there’s very little compromise in choosing the Pleid Sud. The R4’s cockpit is one of the best in the segment, with twin 10-inch screens and Google-powered infotainment that is much more user-friendly than the systems found in the more expensive Ford Puma Gen-E and MINI Aceman. There’s a nice blend of materials, too, although we wish the R4 had proper moulded cup-holders, rather than the bisected storage cubby-style arrangement it’s saddled with.

The more affordable techno+ is our pick of the range, because it includes all the main kit you’d want including 18-inch alloys, adaptive cruise control, air-conditioning, a reversing camera and a heat pump. The iconic+ costs £2,000 more and gets heated seats, a heated steering wheel, a Harman Kardon sound system and blind-spot monitoring.

Renault is yet to produce a UK-spec vehicle. Hence, the example we drove was on gravel tyres and featured an ‘extended grip’ setting which, for a reason that Renault was unable to identify, won’t be available in the UK. Even so, we’re pleased to report that the general driving experience of the Plein Sud is by and large unchanged versus the standard car.

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Producing 148bhp, the Plein Sud provides all the zip most buyers of this type of car could need. It gets from 0-62mph in the same 8.2 seconds as the fixed-roof model, with the steering wheel hilariously squirming away whilst you accelerate. At high speeds with the roof open, there is a bit of wind buffeting. Ironically, this appears to be caused in large part by the large flip-up wind deflector that deploys when you open the roof. There’s no option to close it, sadly, although it does helpfully prevent the wind from restyling your hair. 

Close the roof and there is slightly more road and wind noise than in the hard-top car, but not enough to become obtrusive. On a relaxed motorway jaunt, the Plein Sud is more than comfortable and quiet enough, especially given how good it is to drive. 

While the gravel tyres did cause our test car to understeer a little sooner than we might have expected, the Plein Sud’s light-yet-direct steering was nevertheless ideal for the twisty mountain roads that formed part of our test route. The Plein Sud’s extra chassis stiffening helped prevent the car from leaning too much in the corners – a frequent complaint of some convertibles – despite adding 19kg to the overall kerbweight.

Yet even with a blend of spirited driving, plus more relaxed cruising, we still returned around four miles per kilowatt-hour – or the equivalent of 208 miles on a single charge – roughly 14 per cent less than Renault’s claimed figure. This was helped in large part by the regenerative braking system which, admittedly, can be a little grabby in its most sensitive setting; thankfully, it can be easily adjusted via paddles on the steering wheel. A maximum charging rate of just 100kW also feels a tad leisurely in 2026, but this doesn’t take the shine off what is, in our view, the definitive version of a great small SUV.

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