Renault Clio Hybrid

How does mild hybrid work in class-leading supermini?

RENAULT stole a march on its rivals when it came to selling pure-electric vehicles – no manufacturer has sold more EVs in Europe over the past 10 years. It’s not just the fully electric car market that’s expanding, though, but the electrified segment in general. So now Renault has decided to wade in with a range of hybrid and plug-in hybrid models to ease buyers towards the shift to full battery power.

This, then, is the Renault Clio E-Tech Hybrid, a car which takes on the latest Honda Jazz Hybrid and Toyota Yaris with claimed fuel economy of 64.2mpg and a sub-100g/km CO2 rating.

Renault’s first stab at a hybrid system offers a similar end result to the Yaris: short bursts of electric running, most effective for urban driving. But the execution is a little more complex, something that almost always happens as soon as a car company mentions a phrase such as ‘inspired by Formula One’, or similar.

In this case, it’s the gearbox that can thank motorsport’s finest. The ‘multi-mode’ transmission has no clutches and drives the petrol engine with four gears and the main electric motor (more about that shortly) with another two. Together, it means that there are 15 different gear combinations in which the system can operate – enabling, Renault says, the car to choose the most efficient possible ratio for any situation.

The second electric motor is much smaller, and like those in a mild hybrid it acts as a starter/generator and recovers energy though brake regeneration, which helps to charge a 1.2kWh battery.

Confused? Well, at least the petrol engine is fairly simple: a conventional, petrol-powered 1.6-litre four-cylinder unit.

Complex or not, what really matters is that the Clio Hybrid is a car that can drive on battery power alone at up to 40mph (but can perform engine-off coasting at higher speeds) and, according to Renault, will be able to cover around 80 per cent of urban journeys in electric mode.

It’s a system that, with a few subtle differences, we’ll see elsewhere in the Renault range, too. With a larger battery, it’s the same petrol engine/electric motor combo used in Renault’s plug-in hybrid models, the Captur and the Mégane Sports Tourer. The difference there is that the plug-ins get 20bhp more than the Clio’s 138bhp, courtesy of the higher voltage rating of a larger battery pack.

In the Clio, it’s low-speed driving where this hybrid system is at its best. It starts in fully electric mode, only asking for help from the combustion engine if it registers above a certain torque demand from your right foot, or if the battery is depleted. With enough charge, one prod of the ‘EV’ piano key switch on the dash will prevent the petrol unit from kicking in – enough for a couple of miles’ worth of gentle driving. But when the engine does engage – or turns off again – it’s almost completely seamless. Were it not for a small ‘EV’ logo flicking up in the centre of the dashboard, you’d hardly know which part of the hybrid system is putting in the work.

There are times, however, where all of those gears seem to trip over themselves. Ask for hard acceleration – the type you need when performing an overtake – and you can sense a lot of panicked discussion behind the scenes before any sort of forward motion begins. It’s no more laggy than some conventional automatic gearboxes, but in comparison with the

“The Hybrid can drive on battery power at up to 40mph and coast with the engine off”