Renault Arkana
Arkana aims to bring a touch of coupé grace to the family SUV class. We find out if it has the substance to go with the style
MODEL TESTED: Renault Arkana E-Tech Hybrid 145 S Edition
PRICE: £28,600 ENGINE: 1.6-litre 4cyl hybrid, 140bhp
OUR Renault Arkana is an E-Tech Hybrid 145 model in S Edition trim, which costs £28,600 before options. With metallic paint and a handful of extras it comes to £29,800, just £40 less than the Toyota C-HR in Design trim that it’s up against.
Design & engineering
UNDER the skin, the Arkana uses an extended version of Renault’s CMF-B platform, the same architecture as the current Clio and Captur. Since the Arkana is a larger car than either of those – and quite a bit more expensive – some of the things that impress in those models don’t work quite as well here. The most obvious example is the interior. The design is very similar to the Captur’s; while it looks impressive in a model which represents great value for money in its segment, it doesn’t make the same impact in the Arkana.
It’s much harder to forgive the hard, scratchy plastic materials around the cabin, and while the technology inside is better than the Toyota’s, it merely keeps pace with other competitors’.
Standard S Edition kit includes 18-inch alloys, LED lights, blind-spot warning, rear cross-traffic alert, AEB, a seven-inch digital dial display and a 9.3-inch touchscreen with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
The Arkana E-Tech pairs a 1.6-litre petrol engine with two electric motors. One drives the wheels directly, while a smaller starter/generator unit helps to smooth gearchanges from the clutchless automatic gearbox. The combined output of 140bhp trumps the C-HR’s 120bhp combined figure, but the Arkana is heavier than its rival, so performance is similar. If you want a slightly quicker version, then the Arkana also comes with a 1.3-litre turbo petrol engine. Its 138bhp output may be slightly lower, but it weighs 99kg less and uses a more conventional dual-clutch auto, so it feels sportier than the hybrid.
At 4,568mm long, the Arkana is quite a bit longer than its competitor here. It’s 1,571mm tall and 1,820mm wide, making the French model marginally higher and wider than the Toyota, too.
Driving
DUE to its size, the Arkana feels more unwieldy to drive on tight British roads than the Toyota, but there’s more to it than that. Visibility is fine looking forwards but poor elsewhere (though still better than the C-HR), while the hybrid system is awkward to use. It’s not always clear if the car is even switched on, and several times we tried to pull away before the system was running. This doesn’t happen in the C-HR: when you press the starter button, the car turns on. Both rivals pull away in fully electric mode, with the engine only waking up once on the move.
The Renault’s set-up isn’t as well designed when you’re driving, either. The six-speed auto is a little sluggish and when the powertrain shifts between electric and engine propulsion it’s noticeable immediately, yet it’s virtually seamless in the C-HR.
Performance is a little better in the Renault; it takes 10.8 seconds to reach 62mph, although that’s only 0. 2 seconds faster than its rival here. The engine is a little quieter than the 1.8-litre motor in the C-HR, but that’s partly because of the CVT gearbox in the Ʌ Ƚ