- The take a look at automobile is known as after three record-setting Renault prototypes from the final century
- Renault claims the largely carbon-fiber prototype weighs lower than 2,204 kilos
- A lot 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 Document 2025 is a single-seat EV that shall 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 traditional automobile present in Paris, which runs Feb. 5-9, alongside vehicles that impressed it.
Renault has an extended historical past of record-setting prototypes. The Filante Document 2025 takes its identify 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 Data and Nervasport des Data that set numerous pace and endurance data within the Twenties and Nineteen Thirties, respectively.
Renault Filante Document 2025
The open-wheel bodywork, spherical headlights, and cab-rearward proportions are retro homages to these historic file vehicles, notably the 40 CV des Data. That is thematically in line with Renault’s present road-car technique which, as demonstrated with the Renault 5 E-Tech hatchback, would not draw back from retro styling.
The design continues to be wind-tunnel confirmed, Renault claims. The elongated form helps higher management airflow across the physique, and the wheels and suspension parts have full fairings like these of a land-speed file streamliner. The motive force sits in a reclined place just like that of a Formulation 1 race automobile, with the steering wheel connected to the cockpit cover for simpler ingress and egress.
Physique panels are held along with seen screws, a alternative impressed by plane development that helps save weight, in accordance with Renault. The panels themselves are carbon fiber, whereas the chassis is comprised of a mix of aluminum, carbon fiber, and metal. Topology optimization—the usage of software program fashions to find out the minimal quantity of fabric wanted in a given space—helped additional scale back weight right down to what Renault claims is lower than 2,204 kilos.
Renault Filante Document 2025
The battery pack accounts for 1,322 kilos of that whole. 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, beneath the motive force’s ft). Equally, steer-by-wire and brake-by-wire methods helped designers take advantage of the restricted area within the Filante Document 2025’s cockpit.
Renault did not present a lot element on the powertrain, however stated the Filante Document 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 Document 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 street 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 street automobile, with 4 doorways and a standard inside, the Filante Document 2025 appears tailor-made for racetracks.
