Renault Megane Sport Tourer E-Tech 2020 first drive

There’s more to this facelifted fourth-generation Renault Mégane Sport Tourer than a lightly revamped cabin and a few modest exterior styling tweaks. 

The big news here is that the estate version of Renault’s accomplished C-segment model is now available as a plug-in hybrid, with the tax-friendly status and feel-good eco credentials that the addition of a plug socket and supplementary electric motor inevitably brings. 

It joins the newly released hybrid Clio supermini and the plug-in Captur crossover in Renault’s expanding ‘E-Tech’ family of partly electrified vehicles, and the hope is that these new models will help warm customers up to the idea of owning a fully electric vehicle (such as the Renault Zoe) further down the line.

They all make use of the same normally aspirated 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, which is paired with a smaller electric motor and an integrated starter-generator. But where the Clio is only a conventional hybrid and so comes with a 1.2kWh battery for short bursts of electric-only driving, the Captur and Mégane gain a larger 9.8kWh (7.5kWh gross) power source. 

So the plug-in Mégane can travel a WLTP-certified 30 miles on nothing but electricity alone; manages a claimed economy figure of 217.9mpg; and thanks to a lab-tested CO2 emissions rating of 30g/km, falls into the 10% benefit-in-kind tax bracket. Company car owners will no doubt find that last part appealing.

Admittedly, a Kia Ceed Sportswagon PHEV will travel slightly further on a single charge (it has a WLTP-certified range of 35 miles), but the difference between it and the Renault isn’t so great as to be a deal-breaker. In fact, when it comes to the business of, you know, actually driving, it’s the Renault that comes across as the more polished product. 

Let’s start with the powertrain. In terms of outright refinement, it does rather put the Kia to shame. Use the entirety of the throttle pedal’s travel and the Mégane’s four-cylinder engine remains impressively demure, with only the faintest drone beginning to make its way into the cabin as you approach the national speed limit. By contrast, the Kia’s motor sounds a bit like an unruly blender. The point at which the Renault’s petrol engine actually sparks into life after a sustained period of electric-only running isn’t all that obvious either, which is a good thing.

What’s not so flash, however, is the manner in which it actually accelerates. It handles the sorts of short bursts you might need to make the most of a gap in traffic just fine, but sustained periods of hard acceleration reveal a few shortcomings.