Renault Scenic 2024 review: Pioneering people carrier name returns as above-average electric crossover
Jean-Michelle Jarre included
The original Scenic was a car that changed the world around it, introducing buyers of mid-sized family cars to the kind of interior innovation and practicality so espoused by the larger Renault Espace. No wonder it was a huge hit, and no wonder every other carmaker spent the next decade scrabbling to climb aboard the MPV (known as “people carriers” back then) express. That original Scenic was the last Renault to win the European Car of the Year award.
Some 27 years on, the Scenic has once again walked home with the Coty trophy, but this time around it’s a very different proposition. Gone is the cuddly, inoffensive, egg-shaped MPV body and in comes a sharp-edged, almost aggressive, SUV shape.
A retrograde step? In some ways yes, but then this is what the market wants, and there’s little point in Renault building a car that conforms to the original Scenic’s ethos but finds no buyers.
This new Scenic is pure-electric too, sharing lots of parts with the smaller Mégane hatchback but steering away from the obviously retro styling cues of the upcoming electric Renault 5 and Renault 4. The big question is, can a Scenic that’s not an MPV be a true Scenic?
A bumpy transition to electric
The one thing that this new Scenic really does provide is range. Lots and lots of range. Well, assuming you buy one of the models with the biggest 87kWh-capacity battery at any rate. There is a smaller (60kWh) battery option that promises to be more affordable but comes with a distinctly average 266-mile range, but the bigger option comes with an official 379 miles per charge, under the standard test conditions.
Is that a verifiable figure? Up to a point, yes. As ever with an EV (electric vehicle), factors such as air temperature (EVs hate cold) and how you drive it affect efficiency massively. But Renault has always been refreshingly honest about real-world range and admits that if you get onto a French autoroute and set the cruise control for 80mph then you’ll run out of electric charge after about three hours, or 220 miles.
In more mixed driving, the 379-mile figure starts to look realistic. On our test drive in Spain we tackled a good mix of congested town and city streets, rapid, steep and twisting mountain roads, and a few short motorway runs, and our range worked out at what seems a pretty dependable 310 miles per charge. Not bad.
Better yet, the Scenic charges up quickly. Its nominal rapid-charging rate is 130kW, but it will run at 150kW for a short initial burst, and Renault claims that 30 minutes of charging on a sufficiently powerful charger will buy another two hours of motorway running. Renault is also now offering preferential charging prices at Ionity rapid chargers, which is a godsend as motorway chargers have reached ridiculous prices per kWh.
There’s also the option of brisk 22kW AC charging, which is great if you’re topping up from public kerbside chargers when in town for lunch or shopping.
Realistic electric-only range
With 217bhp on tap you’d be expecting the Scenic to be quick. It will hit 62mph in 7.9 seconds, which Renault points out is faster than the tearaway Renault 5 GT Turbo of the 1980s managed, but unless you are in Sport mode (selected via a neat little switch that dangles, lobe-like, from the right-hand spoke of the steering wheel), it feels much more languid than that.
There is a 221 lb ft dollop of fast-arriving torque (twisting force from the motor) as in all EVs, but acceleration tails off quickly as the cruising speed rises.
And cruising is what the Scenic does best, swooshing along with minimal effort and maximum refinement. There’s a thick surf-board-like panel of noise absorbing foam between the battery and the cabin floor, and that really does the trick, keeping tyre noise almost entirely at bay, and wind noise is also well suppressed.
At lower speeds, the Scenic does make some slightly comical humming noises, designed for the car by the legendary Jean-Michelle Jarre. So that’s cooler in an oh-so-French way than a frozen packet of Gitanes.
High-quality cabin
Gentler cruising also allows you to revel in the cabin, which is a truly excellent piece of design. There’s a pair of big, comfy armchairs up front, and those are surrounded by a positive acreage of space in various storage cubbies and boxes. At least that part of the Scenic heritage is being upheld — you can stuff it with stuff.
Overall quality looks and feels excellent (a definite notch above what you’d find in a Volkswagen ID.4 or Tesla Model Y) and Renault hits its rivals hard with a touchscreen infotainment system that — thanks in part to Google-based software — is reasonably simple to use, and has graphics that are attractive to the eye. It really helps that there’s also a bank of proper physical buttons below the screen to take care of the climate control. Rivals: pay attention.
The back is also very impressive, although it is a shame that the rear seat is just a simple enough bench affair, lacking the multi-mode adjustability of the Scenic’s nineties namesake.
That said, space — both for legs and heads — is simply massive, although very tall rear-seat passengers will find that their knees are cocked up just a fraction too high. That is compensated for by the sheer comfort of the seat itself, and the fact that Renault hasn’t done what a lot of rivals do and saved all its cheap plastics for the back seats.
The centre rear seat is a touch narrow so if you’re running five-up, one of you will have to be skinny. However, here we find one of the new Scenic’s party tricks: it’s the clever armrest, which incorporates two swing-out cupholders that also have built-in holders for phones and tablets.
The armrest also has its own shallow storage areas, two USB-C sockets (along with another brace of those between the front seats) and a fold-down panel allowing you to load long and narrow items through from the boot.
Your kids will be more entertained by the Solarbay glass roof, though. An option on all but the most expensive Scenic models, this does away with a sunblind (saving some 30mm of headroom) and instead has electrified panels built into the glass, which, at the touch of a switch, can go from fully see-through to entirely opaque, and then back again. It’s a very cool party trick, and you can choose to have one half of the glass clear and the other opaque if you like.
Better yet, it’s insulating glass and so helps to keep the heat in on chilly days… and out on hot ones. Much of the glass itself comes from recycled material (as does 25 per cent of the entire car, by weight).
Behind the back seats is a big, square, 545-litre boot (there’s no front luggage area under the bonnet, though) which has a deep loading lip, but you can fix that with an optional underfloor organiser and divider which gives you a flat top surface. There’s a small storage area under the boot for charging cables, too.
The entry-level Scenic Techno is well-priced at £37,495 but that’s for the short-ranged version. If you want the big battery and the 387-mile range — and you really do, especially if you’re going to carry lots of people around, which has always been the Scenic’s raison d’être — then you’re looking at £40,995.
Higher-spec Esprit Alpine models start from £43,495 and only come with that bigger battery, as does the top-spec Iconic model, which costs from £45,495. That makes a long-range Scenic much more affordable than a Long-Range Tesla Model Y, and with more range to boot, but the Scenic is less rapid, and lacks four-wheel drive.
Mind you, the Scenic’s interior makes a mockery of the Tesla’s cheap cabin and its total reliance on one massive touchscreen. The Renault is also nicer inside, and with a vastly better infotainment system, than a VW ID.4 or Skoda Enyaq, although up against the likes of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6, it’s a closer fight.
Nonetheless, this new Scenic does what French cars have done for innumerable decades — provide family motoring at a broadly reasonable price, with a dash of style, a dollop of practicality, and a whole lot of comfort and practicality.
Related articles
- If you were interested in our review of the new Renault Scenic, you may want to read all about the reinvented Renault 5 – as an EV
- Read Will Dron’s comment piece on perhaps the most overlooked reason that private buyers are turning away from electric cars
- And we’ve looked at the question, will electric car prices go down in 2024?
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