Silence S04 Nanocar is already sold in France, Germany and Spain
Nissan hopes its tie-up with a quadricycle maker will help attract younger buyers
The newly refurbished Santiago Bernabéu stadium located in the northern part of Madrid is breathtaking. The fabled football ground recently underwent a transformation costing £1.5 billion, and it now sports a retractable roof and striking metal facade.
It’s amazingly grand, yet as I cruise past the home of Los Blancos, it’s not the stadium that is turning heads – it’s the tiny electric quadricycle I’m driving.
The Silence S04 has quietly been making a name for itself in Europe, having been sold in select markets for more than a year, but it will soon be coming to the UK with help from Nissan.
The Japanese car maker partnered Silence last year and has been selling the S04 Nanocar through its dealer network in France, Germany and Italy.
Founded in 2014 by former motorcycle racer Carlos Sotelo, Silence claims to be the biggest specialist EV manufacturer on the continent and is best known for its range of electric scooters.
With the exclusive distribution rights to the S04 (available in L6 and L7 forms), the model line-up – which includes a new entry-level option and a cargo version – will arrive on UK roads early next year.
But why does automotive giant Nissan, which sells more than three million cars globally each year, want to get involved with quadricycles?
“Bringing in a product that we don’t build, that is complementary to our product range, is the perfect opportunity for us,” explains Gareth Dunsmore, Nissan’s e-mobility boss for Europe. “To be successful in the car industry right now, and over the next few years, you can’t wait to be a disruptor; you have to go out there and do it yourself.
“Instead of spending three or four years designing and developing a product, we are using our expertise beyond our R&D and manufacturing and showcasing our knowledge of selling EVs.”
Dunsmore points to various images of the S04 on display at the Acciona Campus in Madrid, headquarters of the energy conglomerate that owns Silence.
“Just look at the diversity,” he says. “You’ve got retirees, but you’ve also got young people, because the L6 S04 can be driven by 16-year-olds [in the UK], or 14- and 15-year-olds in Europe.
With the rising costs of insurance and driving lessons, only around one-third of 17- to 25-year-olds now have a driver’s licence – the lowest number since 2012.
“Car brands aren’t relevant to young people because there is no need for them to be,” continues Dunsmore. “The S04 is a way for us to put them in the driving seat, and to say we care about that demographic and we want them to be part of the Nissan family.”
We drove an early version of the S04 last year when it was sold in the UK by a licensed importer, and we were impressed by its refinement, kit roster and clever battery-swap technology.
After our test drive around Madrid, the S04 feels like a better alternative to the Citroën Ami thanks to its more advanced and accessible tech, plusher interior and surprising levels of practicality.
It doesn’t look or feel much different from the version we sampled previously: it’s rather firm-riding and doesn’t feel that quick, but given its size and instant EV acceleration it’s easy to thread through traffic and is definitely at home in the city.
It’s the line-up that has received the biggest overhaul. There’s a new entry-level L6e Unico powered by one 5.6kWh battery for a 62-mile range and which can be driven by 16-year-olds in the UK. Don’t worry, parents – it has a reversing camera as standard.
The L6e Vivo (which has a 7in TFT instrument display and phone pairing) gets two removable batteries for a 11.2kWh capacity and 100-mile range. Both make 8bhp and can travel at up to 28mph, but Dunsmore believes the top-of-the-line L7e Plus, which can do 52mph and has a 100-mile range, will be more popular in the UK.
“The benefits of the L6 versus the L7 maybe aren’t as extreme in the UK, and with the L7 you’ve got that extra power for catching up with traffic and driving on dual- carriageways,” he says. Unlike the Ami, the S04 has a removable battery system carried over from Silence’s e-scooters.
The batteries have a trolley handle and wheels, so once you’ve released them from under the seats, you can take them inside for charging. S04 owners can also make use of the battery-swap stations that are currently installed in cities across Spain, enabling them to swap their depleted pack for a fresh one via a subscription service.
Such stations could join the S04 in the UK, according to Dunsmore, with a focus on installing the stations where charging is less readily available.
Sales targets for the UK are unknown, but Nissan is quietly confident about Silence and its new distribution venture.
If you’re after a small urban EV with just enough creature comforts and polish to feel like a car, the S04 shows genuine promise.
