Renault injects quality in SUV segment with new Austral

The new Renault Austral – an electrified SUV – replaces the Kadjar and is key to the company’s plan for “winning back” the C-segment.

“Our ambition was to offer a vehicle that would be part of the Renault brand’s renewal and one of the pillars of our reconquest of the C-segment,” Agneta Dahlgren, Renault design project director, tells Car Design News. “We also wanted a vehicle that would have all the codes of the SUV category while incorporating our new sensual and technological language.” An important model for Renault, then. But what makes it different from the Kadjar, and how will these changes entice new customers?

The Austral is the first model in Renault’s line-up to be based on the CMF-CD platform – a new architecture co-developed by Renault and Nissan. This allowed Dahlgren and her team to take a different approach when working on the vehicle’s proportions, “ensuring that they convey a sense of habitability, robustness and sportiness from the outside.” The result is an aggressive exterior, with large horizontal components on the front and rear to emphasise width, as well as clean and sharp lines along the sides. It feels familiar but fresh at the same time.

At the front, the headlamps retain the C-shaped figure that has been present across Renault’s portfolio for several years, but it is purified due to the absence of circular units for the main lamps. The C-shape is wider, emphasised by the slices of bodywork that extend up from the centre of the front end, and includes both the daytime running light (DRL) LED strips and the main lamps. They are connected to the large grille area, with its 3D pattern full of raised silver rectangles and the new Renault logo in the middle.

Two vertical air intakes are positioned beneath the headlamps, joined by a bow-shaped piece of body work that overlaps and sits on top of the metal above. A horizontal intake in the middle is decorated by the same 3D pattern on the grille area, but here the rectangles are finished in black.

Strong shoulder, belt and character lines feature on the sides, and connect the elements on the front of the model with those on the rear. The shoulder line, for example, extends from the front lamps and fades after the front wheels before reappearing above the rear wheels and merging into the rear lamps. The character lines start close to the sills at the bottom of the front doors, rise to meet the chunky rear wheel arches, and then continue around the rear fenders to join the boot detailing. It is a cohesive and flowing design.

Enormous C-shaped lights at the back almost run the width of the boot to connect in the middle but fall just short to allow space for the Renault logo. They join the rear mask with the greenhouse by bleeding into the upper body work by just a fraction. A giant bumper pushes up into the body work, enlarging the rear stance.

“Quality, safety and sustainability were at the heart of our design specifications,” says Dahlgren. “As a result, the all-new Renault Austral has a high-quality feeling. It is the result of a great geometrical mastery, the treatment of volumes, the structuring lines, drawn with precision and sophisticated details. All materials have been selected with great care and particular attention has been paid to the execution.”

The focus on quality continues on the inside of the Austral. Leather, Alcantara, fabrics and chrome make up most of the surfaces, while real wood clads the small central shelf on the IP. The eye is immediately drawn to the large screen unit, which Renault calls Open’R. It includes the digital driver display and the large portrait central touchscreen. Oddly, the two screens are separated by a vertical air vent, which seems a little clunky and out of place, as if it were added last-minute. There is also a collection of buttons for climate control attached to the bottom of the centre screen, which again appear awkwardly positioned.

Despite these two choices, the interior is neat and tidy, with plenty of room for occupants to sit in comfort. Rear passengers are treated to best-in-class knee-room at 27.4cm.

“I would like to emphasise the modernity of the Austral’s interior,” says Dahlgren. “This can be seen in the feeling of space on-board, which is accentuated by the floating screen without a cap, and through the high-comfort central console which, with its clever handrest, combines functionality and comfort. It reinforces the feeling of protection and the cocoon effect of the cabin.”

Looking ahead, Dahlgren is confident that the Austral will captivate a larger customer base for Renault. She also provides her thoughts on the general direction of SUV design: “We believe in it, of course! Our know-how allows us to constantly reinvent known car typologies and inject them with modernism. There are definitely more surprises to come.”