SUVs to headline Renault's second-gen EV assault

Renault is barely months away from unveiling its range of second-generation electric vehicles – but what’s clear already is the SUV shape will feature heavily.

Speaking with Australian journalists from Europe this week, Renault Design concept car director Francois Leboine said the second wave of Renault EVs would tread a more mainstream path compared with its electric pioneers including the Twizy, Zoe and Kangoo Z.E. models.

Leboine, who oversaw development of the SUV-themed Renault Morphoz concept car unveiled last month, said the latest EVs needed to adhere to modern buying trends – indeed much more so than their forebears.

“The difference between the first generation of Renault electric car and the second one will be very big. The first generation, there were few [rivals] on the market, so in a way the competition was not that strong – you could do what you wanted and it would work because you were alone,” Leboine explained.

“The second generation has a big difference. Everyone will be on the market so you have to be relevant in terms of brand but you have to become very good in terms of product.

“You have to be able to please all the people with the content you have. That’s the job of designers – to make a car that pleases everyone, and you have to make a car that looks nice. One that people would take as their everyday car.

“Generation 2.0 means you have to be iconic, different and one of the best. You have to be chosen.”

Leboine oversaw the design of the original Twizy EV – remember the quirky electric quadricycle from 2014? – describing it as his baby.

He said the Morphoz concept shown last month was designed to announce a series of new Renault EVs that will begin to appear “in a few months”.

Claimed to blend the attributes of a sedan, coupe and SUV, the Renault Morphoz is based on the French car-maker’s brand-new CMF-EV architecture that will form the basis of a whole family of pure-electric cars.

Like other ‘skateboard-style’ platforms, the CMF-EV underpinnings will house batteries beneath the vehicle’s floor, but towards the rear to help provide for an ultra-short bonnet.

“Today the second generation of electric cars are made with batteries that are big and heavy,” Leboine explains.

“In terms of weight, you have to put these batteries at the base of the car because of balance and physics. Because of this you have a platform which is full of batteries, which means you have a car that is quite high – more or less the proportions of an SUV or crossover.

“You are also in a market that is fully in love with SUVs. If you take everything into account when you think about the second generation of EV, then maybe you have an answer as to why we play these cards, we put aircraft feelings, shooting brake feelings, this footprint and aero dynamism.

“That’s the way we approached the second generation.”

Leboine also noted the popularity of SUVs around the world as a decisive factor in the direction of Renault’s second-generation EV models.

“It’s something that’s very interesting to see how a type of car is taking the place of everything like a type of virus,” he joked.

Does that mean the second wave of Renault EVs will be predicated exclusively on the SUV shape? Not at all, according to the senior designer.

“There’s a feeling out there that EVs are giving designers a real freedom, but that’s not true. Yet. Electric vehicles are not giving full freedom just because of the weight and the quantity of batteries,” Leboine said.

“At the moment, in terms of pure strategy, we have to adapt what is the best design for the type of platform we have and to please people in the future.

“That doesn’t mean SUVs are the only one. It doesn’t mean that Renault will only make SUVs on its electric platform – we will have many things that are different. We won’t put all our eggs in the one basket.”