![]() Interior storage includes a decent-size centre armrest, two cupholders and a tray for your phone (but no wireless charging). The mood lighting is a neat touch the matt surfaces in the centre console feel solid enough and the important touchpoints are covered in leather, but the lower dashboard is still made of coarse plastics. ![]() With more recent models such as the Renault Captur and Renault Clio, Renault has shown evidence of higher standards for perceived quality, but the Mégane looks a tad drab, with big slabs of rubberised dashboard broken up only by a sliver of unconvincing ‘carbonfibre’. If you do need more room, Renault does offer a Sport Tourer estate. There is an additional 16-litre compartment under the boot floor for cable storage, but that is the only underfloor space available. It also suffers from a fairly high load lip, and the rear seats will not quite fold flat. The boot is a little larger than its direct hybrid rivals, at 292 litres, though that is still down on regular hatchbacks since the battery robs some space. Alternatively, both can work together or the electric motor can be decoupled on the motorway for the engine to drive the car alone, which is more efficient at higher speed. In other words, in town it can drive electrically with the engine either turned off or acting as a generator. Because the engine and the large electric motor can be decoupled from each other in order for either to drive the car by itself, the Mégane can function as a series or parallel hybrid, or as an EV. Renault will also tell you that it feels more natural and allows for more driving engagement than, say, a CVT. First, it is relatively compact and low cost, to the point that Renault has hinted it may also appear in future Dacias. In practice, the system claims a few benefits. That means, in a sense, that the gearbox can be in two gears at the same time – one for the engine and one for the electric drive motor. ![]() There are just four gear ratios, but this transmission has the unusual ability where the engine can use any of the four gear ratios to drive through, while the big electric motor can use only two of them. To change gears after that, the engine is put in neutral, and the starter motor will again match the revs to smoothly engage the next gear, in a similar way to how you might limp a manual car with failed clutch hydraulics to a garage. Once the car is up to speed, the engine can be engaged to any of the four ratios of the automatic gearbox, and to make sure there is no unseemly grinding of gears, the starter-generator adjusts the engine and input shaft’s RPM to match. To ensure there is always enough battery to do so, the engine can run the generator while in neutral. As the gearbox is clutchless, the engine cannot be decoupled – only put in neutral – so the car always sets off on electric power to get around the fact that a petrol engine cannot operate from zero RPM.
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