Renault is showing off a potential solution to range and charging anxiety at the Paris Motor Show next week in the shape of the Emblème concept car, which mixes battery and hydrogen power.
’Shooting Brake’ estate
The Emblème is a 4.8-metre long low-roofed shooting brake (Renault’s own term for it) with a 2.9-metre wheelbase and rather lovely ‘dichroic’ green paint that looks subtly different depending on which angle you’re viewing it from. The famous Renault diamond badge is now backlit.
The looks are all very nice, but the core of the Emblème is its engineering, through which Renault reckons it can achieve a 90 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions. That’s not just in terms of driving it and charging it, or fuelling it, but across the entire lifetime of the car, from when the steel to make the Emblème’s structure is forged.
Indeed, according to Renault, the Emblème's total manufacture-to-recycling emissions are just five tonnes of CO2, an exceptionally low figure. By comparison, a current electric Megane E-Tech has total lifetime emissions of around 24 tonnes of CO2.
90 per cent CO2 reduction
How has this been achieved? By looking at every process involved in making the Emblème and trying to reduce emissions all the way long the line. According to Renault, the Emblème uses: “recycled materials with a low carbon footprint, natural materials, production processes relying entirely on renewable energy, general implementation of re-used parts and circularity.”
The shooting-brake body (posh term for an estate, and isn’t it refreshing that the Emblème isn’t an SUV?) is aerodynamically efficient, thanks to replacing the side mirrors with cameras, tucking the door handles away when not in use, and hiding the windscreen wipers under the edge of the bonnet. Two fins on the bonnet and two air vents on the bumper channel the airflow towards the windscreen and behind the wheels, respectively. The wheels are fully covered discs in order to conduct the airflow along the body. The F1-inspired flat-bottom design is enhanced by an active diffuser, which tilts downwards and to the rear to balance the airflow and minimise aerodynamic drag.
F1-inspired? Not just inspired - Renault has leant on the technical expertise of its Alpine Formula One team to ‘digitally twin’ the Emblème's design to ensure that all of its aero work was adding up properly. The Emblème has a coefficient of drag of 0.25Cd.
Another factor in making the Emblème as efficient as possible is making it as light as possible - Renault claims that it has “hunted down every superfluous kilogram” to arrive at a kerb weight of 1,750kg - pretty good for a roomy electric car.
Hydrogen power
Not just electric, of course. The Emblème is powered by a 160kW (220hp) electric motor, essentially lifted from the current Megane and Scenic models. It’s powered by a 40kWh battery pack, enough, says Renault, for ‘several hundred kilometres’ of range. For longer journeys, there’s a 30kW PEMFC hydrogen fuel cell, which draws H2 from a 2.8kg tank. That gives the Emblème a range of 350km on a tank of hydrogen, which takes just five minutes to top up. The claim is that the Emblème can cover 1,000km in the same time as a regular combustion car (assuming you can find a couple of hydrogen filling stations along the way).
According to Renault, on such a journey as that: “Between Paris and Marseille, 75 per cent of the electricity consumed by the vehicle is produced by the fuel cell, with no emissions other than water.”
Will the Emblème actually make it to production? Probably not as a part-hydrogen vehicle, but the chances of Renault making something quite like it are pretty high. The French car maker said the Emblème “symbolises Renault's reaffirmed ambition to continue innovating in the C segment and higher.”