Good looks, a great engine set-up, but basic chassis and handling traits are lacking
It’s unfortunate that two great sporting names have somehow found their way into the title of a Renault SUV without one sporting bone in its body. But don’t be distracted for, unlike most crossover hybrid SUVs, there’s actually some interesting stuff in this new Renault Austral.
Like close to 200bhp from a 1.2-litre engine. It’s thanks to two electric motors which work in a far from conventional way. One actually powers the car most of the time, and almost all of it around town, while the second doubles as a combined starter motor and alternator, adding dashes of torque-fill when required. Which leaves the ICE engine either as a dead weight, or working in tandem with the main electric motor, or acting as a range-extender and topping up the onboard battery, so you never have to plug it in.
Now, because plug-ins make a mockery of fuel consumption calculations, its 57.7mpg looks rubbish compared to, say, the 217mpg recorded by the heavier, more powerful Alfa Tonale PHEV reviewed last month. But, in the real world, the car is phenomenally frugal and performs well because of its novel powertrain.
It’s also spacious, well equipped and, by the absurd standards of such cars these days, not even that expensive. A shame, then, that its chassis fails to match the standards of its driveline. I didn’t expect it to handle brilliantly despite four-wheel steering, but it doesn’t even ride that well either, which is a pity. AF
I have a friend called Richard Bremner. You may know the name because he was a long-time staffer and former editor of Car magazine and is a current contributor to…
From 1911 to 1994, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was pretty much a one-trick pony. The gates opened on May 1, the Indianapolis 500 was contested a few weeks later, and…
You’ll not have failed to notice that electric vehicles are now being thrown at us thick and fast, and I’m afraid to report that most I drive are still heavy,…
I have always considered what I do to be a young man’s game, inconvenient for me insofar as by the time you chance upon this column, you’ll be reading the…
The late monarch’s Range Rover went for 10 times the typical price of a similar non-Royal model
Late backer of the McLaren F1 team Mansour Ojjeh’s entire 20-car McLaren collection has been snapped up by one undisclosed buyer
This is such a superficially clever car. It’s a quite spacious five door family machine that, like so many other electric vehicles, also goes like hell when you so command.…
If you’ve watched the Netflix series Yellowstone you will want to go to Montana. If you haven’t it comes highly recommended by me and everyone else I know who’s seen…
Is Lotus really going to shut its Hethel factory? Personally, and despite the company saying it has “no plans” to do so, I would not bet against it. We had…
One of the first big jobs I did as a young road tester was to pit a Morgan Plus Eight against an E30-series BMW M3 convertible. The outcome may seem…
Long chat with Gordon Murray after what seems like far too long. As you read this the South African-born son of Scottish parents will have just entered his 80th year,…
It gives me no pleasure to say it, but the only true BMW M car of recent times to which I’ve felt a proper connection is the baby of them…
