Renault Symbioz
Renault Symbioz £n/a WE SAY: RENAULT GAZES INTO THE BOULE DE CRISTAL
The Renault Symbioz is not a real car. It’s a one-of, designed to showcase Renault’s vision of what motoring will look like in the year 2023, when the level-four autonomy it ofers will not only be legal, but also commercially viable and socially acceptable. This is not the next Espace. It does not preview a future Renault (or so they say…), but lessons learnt and technologies implemented here will work their way onto series production cars in the coming years.
And the Symbioz isn’t based on an existing Renault, either. That would defeat the point. This purpose-built, semi- autonomous, ‘connected’ EV was developed from the ground up over two years. It rides on a bespoke EV platform – the 72kWh battery giving a continuous output of 483bhp and 405lb ft, though Renault claims a peak of 670bhp and 487lb ft, enough for 0–62mph in 6.0secs. Not fast, considering.
That’s because although the body is mostly aluminium, the Symbioz weighs a hefty 2.2 tonnes. It’s basically as long as a Mercedes E-Class Estate too. Still, with fourwheel steering and a Dynamic mode that sharpens throttle response, quickens the steering and hardens the three-stage active (not adaptive) dampers, in manual mode it does a decent impression of a regular EV.
But it’s in ‘AD’ mode where things get properly interesting. Level-four autonomy is where you can mentally check out from the business of driving in certain situations – in this case, on the motorway – because whatever happens, the car will be able to bring itself to a safe and controlled stop if it can’t handle an unexpected situation.
Here the Symbioz is in its element, changing lanes when necessary and even navigating a couple of tolls. An augmentedreality-enabled HUD tells you what the car’s doing – or thinking of doing, and video playback is enabled on the centre screens. A number of things make this possible. The 35 sensors, the antennae placed at certain intervals along the carriageway to enable vehicle-to-infrastructure communication (telling of trafc fow, roadworks, which toll gates are open, etc, and the high-def TomTom maps which are far, far more accurate than the ones for your satnav.
Clever, certainly, but not ready (its minder had to retake control a few times). But still a useful demo of what commitment is required from carmakers to get this tech up and running, and what impact it might have on our lives. Ho hum.