Renault Arkana In-Depth UK 2022 Review - Style Over Substance?

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The Renault Arkana strays into a market segment for mid-sized coupe-SUVs previously only occupied by the premium brands. To compensate for the lack of a posh badge on the bonnet, you get plenty of pavement presence and a dose of Renault latest hybrid technology, with both mild hybrid and full-hybrid petrol powerplants on offer. As for the inside, well here's where the efforts made to imbue recent smaller models with extra cabin quality have paid off, enabling Renault to push up-market using the same interior technology. The result is a surprisingly polished proposition.

TIMESTAMPS
00:00​​​​ Introduction
00:51 Background
03:47 Driving Experience
14:08 Design & Build
27:41 Market & Model Range
38:24 Cost of Ownership
45:19 Summary

Background

Renault over the years has pioneered various completely new market niches - think Avantime, Twizy, Clio V6 and so on. It's nearly always been a disaster. Where the company has usually done much better is in properly developing an existing idea - think Clio, Scenic and Captur. So the auspices are good for this car, the Arkana.

It hails from an existing but relatively undeveloped market niche, that for the mid-sized coupe-SUV - which is the sort of thing that Renault's design department thrives on. So far, only premium European brands have launched models in this segment - think BMW X4, Audi Q5 Sportback and Mercedes GLC Coupe. The Arkana is sized somewhere between these cars and slightly smaller coupe-SUVs like BMW's X2 and the Audi Q3 Sportback. However you pitch it, it's the only volume brand model (and therefore the only truly affordable) entry in this segment. Skoda and Kia are both planning coupe-SUVs, but these will be of the pricey all-electric sort.

Driving Experience

Because the Arkana rides on the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance's CMF-B compact car platform, which is also used for the Clio and Captur, you'd expect it to borrow engines from those models - and of course it does. Both units develop 140hp and are petrol powered - but each is very different. Things kick off with a turbocharged 1.3-litre four-cylinder 12v TCe 140 mild-hybrid petrol unit, which sends drive to the front wheels via a dual-clutch auto gearbox. It makes 62mph from rest in 9.8s en route to 127mph. And if you can afford a bit more? Well Renault had the option here to install either of its 1.6-litre E-Tech full-electrified powerplants, either the self-charging Prius-like one from the Clio or the PHEV plug-in one from the Captur. It's opted (from launch anyway) for the Clio's self-charging unit, which has two electric motors and a 1.2 kWh lithium-ion battery. It sends drive through a clever F1-derived clutch-less dogbox auto transmission, which Renault reckons is more efficient and smoother than a conventional automatic. 62mph from rest takes 10.8s en route to 107mph.

The auto-only powertrain format tells you most of what you need to know about the emphasis on comfort rather than drive dynamics here - but virtually all models in this segment are sold with auto transmission anyway. A nod to autonomous drive technology is delivered by the availability of Renault's 'Motorway and Traffic Jam Companion' - an autonomous drive setting which can assume control of the car's throttle, brakes and steering on the motorway.

Design and Build

So what do you think? Renault Design Chief Laurens van den Acker says the Arkana silhouette is supposed to offer 'a balance between the elegance of a saloon and the powerful stance of an SUV'. Heard that claim before? So have we. Still, there's certainly nothing else in the segment with a rear end quite like this one. SUV credentials are endorsed by 190mm of ground clearance, plus rugged front and rear skid plates and wheel arches. The five-door bodyshell measures 4,568mm in length and 1,571mm in height and it's screwed together, not in France but in Renault's factory in Busan, South Korea.

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