fortwo Electric Drive

Make
smart
Segment
Hatchback

Step out of the office and into any car-rental company's lot and you're bound to see the same cars you can buy at a dealership: Chevy Malibus, Toyota Corollas, and the like. Some offer more interesting choices as well (at a premium), but you soon may be able to rent a car (of sorts) in America that you can't buy here.

According to the latest reports from The Information and The Drive, electric-scooter company Lime is preparing to roll out a fleet of Renault Twizy electric city cars (along with the relatively larger Fiat 500E).

The Twizy, for those unfamiliar, is a city car (to use the term loosely) that's about a foot shorter than even a Smart Fortwo – which shares its underpinnings with the Twizy's (relatively) big brother, the Twingo – and barely more than half the length of the Leaf made by Renault's ally Nissan. It's so narrow that the two seats are placed in tandem (like on a motorcycle), but with four wheels and a centerline-mounted steering wheel. It's powered exclusively by an electric drivetrain, with a tiny 6.1-kWh battery giving it a top speed no higher than 50 miles per hour.

Though Renault hasn't competed in the North American market for over three decades now, it started leasing the Twizy in (French) Canada two and a half years ago. Whether that'll make it any easier for Lime to bring the Twizy into the US, we couldn't say. The two countries tend to share common regulations.

But if the reports come to fruition, getting yourself into a Twizy may be as easy as picking up one of those electric scooters that Lime has been scattering around cities and university campuses across the country.