Renault Megane line-up future uncertain; company to focus on developing electric vehicles – van den Acker

Despite having received a facelift in February, the future of the Renault Megane line-up is in doubt, according to a report by Auto Express. This is due to both declining sales figures as well as a growing focus on development of electric vehicles, the magazine said.

Renault is looking at its options to see if its development expenditure could be better spent elsewhere, executive vice president of corporate design Laurens van den Acker told Auto Express. “Inevitably, once we’re starting to add a range of EVs to our line-up, some of the other vehicles are going to have to go because we just can’t afford to develop all of this at the same time,” van den Acker said.

The Megane is in a segment that is increasingly under pressure, and Renault has to put its money where the future of the market is, the design chief added. In 2010, the Megane sold 465,732 units across Europe, and that figure has seen a decline to less than half in a decade, dropping to 209,845 units sold in 2019, said the magazine.

Just 2,699 units of the Megane were sold in the United Kingdom last year, comapared to 58,994 units of the Volkswagen Golf in the same period, the report noted. The debut of the Megane’s fourth-generation facelift brought with it an E-Tech plug-in hybrid variant, which featured a 1.6 litre four-cylinder petrol mated to a multi-mode, clutchless transmission and dual electric motors for a combined output of 160 PS.

The electric drivetrain draws power from a 9.8 kWh/400 V battery that enables a pure electric driving range of up to 50 km on the WLTP combined test cycle, or up to 65 km when tested on the urban cycle. First launched in the station wagon bodystyle, the Megane E-Tech has an electrically-driven top speed of 135 km/h.

GALLERY: Renault Megane IV facelift

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