THE ALL-NEW RENAULT ARKANA. Short review.

SUV’s continue to dominate the new car market. Nearly all car manufacturers have some sort of SUV in its line up. So when Renault announced its new Arkana (a first for a mainstream manufacturer to produce a coupe SUV) I thought – this car is the answer to the question that hadn’t been asked.. “Is there a market for a C-segmant coupe SUV?” It seems that there is! Renault are happy to report that there has been plenty of enquires for the new Arkana and at the time of writing this they have taken more than 2000 orders in the UK since its launch.

Stepping inside the cabin, I was pleased to find that the interior has a premier look and feel to the plastics and switches. I was greeted with the 9.3 inch touchscreen which is the major focal point to the dashboard.

With this being a coupe SUV, its sloping rear roof hasn’t impacted the rear passenger’s headroom. There is only 15mm difference in the headroom between the front and rear passengers.

I drove the S-Edition E-TECH 145 Hybrid but there is another option of a slightly cheaper Mild-hybrid with its price starting at £27,600.

I was slightly taken aback with its smooth ride.. especially in fully electric mode. It quietly switches from electric drive to the petrol engine. When pushing along, I found that it wasn’t the quickest or most involving driving experience, but I really don’t think that is the point of the car. I will explain further below.

On the road it has a calming nature to its driving characteristics. I am sure that this would mean that any long distance journey would be relaxing and pleasurable. Visibility out of the windscreen/side windows is brilliant and this is thanks to its high commanding and comfy driving position. I found the steering to be well weighted and there wasn’t too much body-roll on medium to quick corners.
My preferred driving mode was in “B” which is the Brake Mode One-pedal driving with increased regenerative braking. This allows me to slow the vehicle down by just lifting my foot off the accelerator pedal – which helps re-charge the car as I drove it.