Renault is slated to restart the Espace name, which popularized people-carrying in Europe 40 years ago, as an SUV later this year, but Australian plans are unclear.
He Transport of people Renault Espace – which pioneered and popularized the category in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s – will reboot later this year as a seven-seat family SUV.
It is yet to be confirmed for renault Australian showrooms, and whether it would sit alongside, or succeed, the koleos Family SUV, which is seven years old and due for replacement.
“We will raise our hand to anything available in right-hand drive, assuming it is commercially viable,” said Glen Sealey, Renault Australia general manager. Handle.
If the decision is made to give the green light to the new space for Australia, Handle he understands that local showroom arrivals would be 12-18 months behind Europe, where it will launch in the second half of 2023.
“We are very far from that study [of its feasibility for local showrooms]. In Australia we typically have a 12-18 month backlog so we have plenty of time,” said Mr Sealey Handle.
If approved for sale, the new model would be the first Renault Espace sold in Australia. Renault Australia has never offered a larger people mover than the 2000s Scenic and Grand Scenic, based on the Megane hatchback.
The original Espace, launched in 1984, was one of the first modern car-derived people movers in Europe, soon popularizing the concept for five generations, spawning waves of European and Japanese competitors.
However, people-carrying vehicle sales have been declining over the past decade amid the SUV boom, with 2019 Renault Espace deliveries down 85 per cent on 1999 figures.
He Espace of the previous generation – which was not built with right-hand drive – retained the people-carrier body style offered since its 1984 launch, but introduced a higher ride height and some cues of SUV styling.
Since the Austral is at the smaller end of the midsize SUV category, and closer to a small SUV like a Nissan Qashqai or Mazda CX-30, it’s possible that the third-row seats in the new Espace are not as spacious as the Espace. old.
Rivals are likely to include enlarged midsize SUVs with seven-seat options, such as the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace, Peugeot 5008, Nissan X-Trail and Mitsubishi Outlander.
The new Renault Espace will be twinned under the skin with the Nissan and Mitsubishi models, as well as the Austral and the Nissan Qashqai, in the CMF-CD architecture of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance for mid-size family SUVs.
That likely means a range of turbocharged three- and four-cylinder engines with mild-hybrid technology, or a full E-Tech Hybrid model that claims to consume around five liters of fuel per 100km.
The arrival of the Renault Espace will coincide with the seventh birthday of the current Renault Koleos SUV, which will be succeeded by a new model, but apparently does not have a direct replacement.
The Renault Koleos’s twin, the Nissan X-Trail, entered a new generation in Australia last year, but it’s unclear if a new Koleos is on the horizon.
As previously reported by Handle, Koleos is safe until the end of 2024; however, her future beyond 2025 is unclear. The Espace could be a suitable replacement, as it’s expected to be a similar size.
However, it may not be possible to price the new model similarly, as the Koleos is made in South Korea, while the Espace is expected to be made in Europe, which would incur shipping costs ( and possibly manufacturing) higher.
Australia also has a free trade agreement with South Korea, removing the five percent import tariff, but has yet to finalize a similar agreement with the European Union.
He 2023 Renault Espace it will be unveiled in Northern Hemisphere Spring 2023 (March to May), which would likely correlate with first European showroom arrivals in the second half of this year.
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