► Updated Renault Megane E-Tech inbound soon
► A new ‘hot hatch’ look to make it more distinct
► Plus larger new battery to increase range
Renault’s Megane E-Tech has largely been ignored in the last year since the latest Scenic, as well as the 4 and 5 EVs have launched. The brand aims to put that right by introducing a ‘hot hatch’ inspired redesign to set it apart in the range that’ll launch soon.
‘This was our first real EV that launched at the beginning of our Renaulution plan,’ says brand CEO Fabrice Cambolive. ‘We launched it when the EV fleet [selection] was not so high. For Megane E-Tech, what we are looking for is to have a hot hatch – that’s the direction we want to go in.’
When pressed to elaborate, Cambolive said ‘we’re already talking too much about that,’ with a smile. ‘But the direction we have set since the beginning is to have a more sporty vehicle.’
‘We have a Phase II model coming this year with a different battery,’ says Renault Group design head, Laurens van den Acker. ‘The thing is, when you put a new battery in a car – which is very expensive – and you don’t change the car, you’ll be really hard pressed to seduce people to pay for it. So, we needed to do justice to the changes underneath and what we thought the world was missing was a hot hatch EV. We thought we had nothing to lose so we pushed that.’
‘You can always make things more appealing,’ smiles van den Acker. ‘We needed to sell more of them, so we needed to do something.
The new battery pack is said to be physically larger than before, as well as denser for a higher range.
We’ll likely see the updated Megane E-Tech towards the end of 2025.