- The take a look at automobile is called after three record-setting Renault prototypes from the final century
- Renault claims the principally carbon-fiber prototype weighs lower than 2,204 kilos
- Many of the weight is from an 87-kwh capability battery pack
Renault on Thursday unveiled an idea automobile designed not simply to look fairly on auto present stands, however to check new methods of bettering electric-vehicle effectivity.
The Renault Filante Report 2025 is a single-seat EV that will likely be utilized in effectivity and vary file makes an attempt later this 12 months, Renault stated in a press launch. First, it will likely be displayed on the Retromobile basic automobile present in Paris, which runs Feb. 5-9, alongside automobiles that impressed it.
Renault has a protracted historical past of record-setting prototypes. The Filante Report 2025 takes its title from three of them: the Ètoile Filante (French for “capturing star”) that set pace data at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats within the Fifties, and the 40 CV des Information and Nervasport des Information that set numerous pace and endurance data within the Nineteen Twenties and Nineteen Thirties, respectively.
Renault Filante Report 2025
The open-wheel bodywork, spherical headlights, and cab-rearward proportions are retro homages to these historic file automobiles, significantly the 40 CV des Information. That is thematically in step with Renault’s present road-car technique which, as demonstrated with the Renault 5 E-Tech hatchback, does not shrink back from retro styling.
The design remains to be wind-tunnel confirmed, Renault claims. The elongated form helps higher management airflow across the physique, and the wheels and suspension elements have full fairings like these of a land-speed file streamliner. The driving force sits in a reclined place much like that of a System 1 race automobile, with the steering wheel hooked up to the cockpit cover for simpler ingress and egress.
Physique panels are held along with seen screws, a alternative impressed by plane building that helps save weight, in keeping with Renault. The panels themselves are carbon fiber, whereas the chassis is comprised of a mix of aluminum, carbon fiber, and metal. Topology optimization—using software program fashions to find out the minimal quantity of fabric wanted in a given space—helped additional scale back weight all the way down to what Renault claims is lower than 2,204 kilos.
Renault Filante Report 2025
The battery pack accounts for 1,322 kilos of that complete. It has the identical 87-kwh capability because the pack within the Renault Scénic E-Tech crossover, however with cell-to-pack tech the automaker claims reduces weight and permits for extra versatile packaging (the pack is positioned ahead within the chassis, below the motive force’s ft). Equally, steer-by-wire and brake-by-wire techniques helped designers benefit from the restricted house within the Filante Report 2025’s cockpit.
Renault did not present a lot element on the powertrain, however stated the Filante Report 2025 will roll on specially-designed Michelin tires with a slim design to assist scale back aerodynamic drag and rolling resistance.
As a one-off prototype designed to flee the weight-and-efficiency spiral of present EVs aiming for data, the Filante Report 2025 is analogous in intent to the Mercedes-Benz Imaginative and prescient EQXX idea, which in 2022 managed 746 miles on a single cost on a highway journey from Stuttgart, Germany, to the Silverstone racetrack within the U.Okay.—with sufficient cost leftover for just a few victory laps. However the place the EQXX not less than vaguely resembled a highway automobile, with 4 doorways and a traditional inside, the Filante Report 2025 appears tailor-made for racetracks.
