Captur the power of E-tech
RENAULT was in on the electric thing very early on. Remember the wacky Twizy, the diddy two-seater electric car that has four wheels but isn’t much wider than a scooter? And of course the Zoe hatchback, which was one of the pioneers in the electric car revolution.
Now Renault has turned its attention to hybrid powertrains for those that are not yet ready to make the full jump to EVS. Three cars have just been launched and they’re all badged as E-tech models.
The smallest is the Clio, which uses a 1.6-litre, four-cylinder, naturally aspirated petrol engine driving through an
F1-inspired clutchless transmission. There’s a small 1.2kwh battery that feeds power to an electric motor within the transmission.
There’s another electric motor which is a combined starter/generator (known as an ISG for Integrated Starter Generator).
The other two cars in the range are the Megane Sports Tourer E-tech and the Captur E-tech, which is the car that we’re testing this week. The difference between the Clio and these two cars is that they’re plug-in hybrids. We’ve already tested the Clio and Megane so now we’re looking at the Captur E-tech.
Just as with the Clio, the Captur has two electric motors – a small one that is a combined starter/generator and a larger motor that’s combined with the gearbox and which is the main traction motor. Just like the Clio, the Captur always pulls away in electric which, with no clutch, it has to do. The combined power output of the combustion engine and the electric motor is 160bhp.
But the big difference between the two cars’ drivetrain is that because it is a PHEV, the Captur E-tech has a larger lithium-ion battery. Whereas the Clio has a 1.2kwh battery for short bursts of electric-only driving, the Captur has a 9.8kwh battery which gives the car an electric-only range of 30 miles.
OUR TEST car is a left-hand drive French specification so is bound to have a slightly different list of standard equipment when compared to a Uk-spec car. The Captur E-tech range starts at £30,495 for the entry level S Edition and rises to £30,995 for the Launch Edition. Those are the only two trim levels available.
You’ll spot an E-tech version of the Captur thanks to badges on its tailgate and b-pillars, and a charging flap on the offside of the car. There’s also some E-tech badging inside but you’ll know you’re driving a PHEV when you fire up the dashboard and see the graphics. You have a choice of three driving modes in what Renault refers to as Multisense Driving Modes. The first is Pure, which you can select via a button on the centre console or via the touchscreen, that selects all-electric driving as long as there’s juice in the battery. Most useful and a must-have feature in a PHEV, is an E-save button which when pressed reserves battery power for later – for driving in town, for example. Lastly there’s Sport mode which does what you’d expect and gives you maximum petrol engine and battery performance.
For most of the test route on which we drove the Captur I kept the car in Pure mode, albeit with a quick try of Sport mode. Pretty pointless as the Captur E-tech is not a sporty car at all.
It is comfortable but with a 0-62mph performance of 9.8sec it is hardly fast. When I was about 30 miles from the finish I pressed E-save and started driving as economically as possible and managed to get very close to achieving the distance on electric power alone.
The Captur PHEV has lost a bit of luggage space to its batteries and can carry 379 litres of luggage compared to a regular Captur with a diesel or petrol engine’s 422 litres. There’s an underfloor space for the charging cables that you’ll be plugging into the wallbox charger that Renault will have given you for free.
If you’re a business user the Renault Captur E-tech makes sense for tax reasons. As always with a PHEV, you won’t get the true benefit of the car – rarely, if ever, having to visit a petrol station – if you don’t have charging facilities at home.
Plug-in hybrids are still a relatively rare breed, with the Mini Countryman its closest rival.