What is it?
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.
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They will probably sell about
They will probably sell about 45 of these then it gets withdrawn. Pity whoever pickes on up after 5 years and hoping that dog clutch and tech doesn't go boom and ruin your marginal running cost savings.
Seven speeds??
Nope, it doesn't have seven speeds. It has instead Renault's weird but apparently wonderful dog clutch box which has four gears but uses them in all manner of complicated ways to provide two speeds in electric mode and four in petrol mode.
how did this happen
Fur less than 2k more you can have a V60, the world is truly bonkers
xxxx wrote:
That's disingenuous, even for you. The hybrid V60 is £45k.
Try again Sporky
Even by your standards your maths is awful today. To the private buyer a V60 Momentum Auto B3 is 34.4k better engine, better car, way better value for money