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Radical New Renaults Will Ditch Conventional SUV Body Styles
- Renault will move away from traditional SUV shapes to lower, sportier designs on its new electric vehicles starting in 2028.
- Design head Gilles Vidal says this year’s Embleme concept points to the kind of athletic silhouette we can expect.
- Although the design of new models will be forward-looking, the retro 4, 5 and Twingo EVs are here to stay.
Renault’s retro-influenced 4, 5 and Twingo have gone down a storm, but the French automaker has very different plans for its other models. The company’s design boss says an army of new EVs launching from 2028 will look forward, not back, and begin a design shift away from traditional SUV shapes.
Design boss Gilles Vidal suggests we look to this year’s Embleme concept, a sporty, low-slung crossover, for an idea of what to expect when the new-generation electric cars arrive on their also-new EV platform.
Related: Renault Embleme Concept Is A Sleek FCEV Crossover With Ultra-Low Emissions
“The cars before the Embleme were maybe a bit misleading, because you see a 5, a 4, a Twingo,” Vidal told Autocar.
“The Embleme is a better representation of what’s next for the brand globally in terms of design, and maybe new silhouettes, for the future: generous shapes, not too minimalistic, but simpler than what we did lately on Scenic.”
Vidal even suggested that wagons, whose market share has been eroded by SUVs and crossovers, could influence future sport-utilities. He described sport wagons as “kind of sexy” and said their low rooflines but large cargo areas made sense for EVs that need to balance the twin priorities of practicality and driving range.
Vidal acknowledged that anti-SUV sentiment, which is particularly strong in the automaker’s home city of Paris, was a consideration during the design process, but believes that maybe the hate was unwarranted.
“There’s still a huge fight against SUVs on principal, but would you say the same thing about MPVs?” he asked Autocar’s reporter. “They are the same weight, have the same engines, the same CO2 emissions. But no-one would ever criticize an MPV, a respectable family product. Who are we to criticize aggressive looking cars?”
But while Vidal’s team is striving to come up with something entirely new and forward-looking to replace Renault’s familiar SUV shapes, that doesn’t mean it is already making plans to cut short the lives of the 4, 5 and Twingo. He described the trio as “timeless” and claimed they’d evolve slowly, like Fiat’s retro 500.
