Renault Scenic E-Tech Reviews

Renault Australia has abandoned its plans to sell the new-generation Clio and facelifted Zoe light hatchbacks as part of its SUV focus, which will continue with the new-generation Captur light SUV in the first quarter of next year

Renault Australia has confirmed it will axe the recently launched Kadjar small SUV, with it to be replaced by the coupe-style Arkana in the second half of next year

Renault Australia is still hoping to expand its LCV line-up beyond vans, with the Alaskan and Duster Oroch dual-cab utes still on its radar, but just not in the short term

It's no secret that 2020 has been hard for the local car industry.

There are currently 10 models competing for customers in the medium-sized 2.5-3.5 tonne GVM commercial van segment, which is dominated by Toyota's HiAce with Hyundai's iLoad and Ford's Transit Custom in an increasingly close fight for second and third place.

To modern Australian families, the SUV is what a Commodore or a Falcon used to be - the sensible, obvious and most common choice of family vehicle.

1. Honda S2000By the time the second cam kicks in above 6000rpm, the raucous cacophony emanating from the stylish two-seat roadster on its way to the 9000rpm redline is blood-curdlingly euphoric. People always talk about car engine sounds as 'banshee wail' this and 'banshee wail' that. Short of a pre-hybrid era F1 car, to four-cylinder fans the S2000 is the mother of all banshees – and she’s a little angry the kids haven't cleaned their rooms and forgotten to flush the toilet again.Landing in Australia in 1999, it was a relatively affordable front mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive roadster that finally gave Mazda MX-5 owners something to think about. The S2000's naturally aspirated 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine whacked out a colossal 176kW. Its six-speed manual transmission was one of life's simple pleasures to use, short in the throw and felt sublimely authoritative in slotting the titanium shifter through each gate. Fast-cornering grip levels were mostly under control, though the spirited rear-driver has power-oversteer written into its F1-derived DNA.Why drive it: It has the sophistication to tootle around town impressing the latte-sipping social elite while happy to unleash fiendish fury on a track when you make the call - if you dare. Driving the S2000 at 8/10ths is probably enough to blow your mind - anything more will require an honest appraisal of your own driving skill underwritten with a healthy dose of chutzpah.2. Renault Sport ClioYou’ll be heel-toeing instinctively thanks to 'quirkily perfect' footwell pedal placement. It's a true hot hatch, with the diminutive three-box body propelled by a 124kW 2.0-litre revvy engine driving the front wheels via a five-speed manual gearbox. It's just an amazingly fun car to drive. So willing and flexible is its drivetrain that it eggs you on even further to push the lightweight Clio's superb handling and on-road dynamics. It’s perfect for hillclimbs or weekend car-club track work.Why drive it: It will be some of the best fun you could ever have with your clothes on, in a purely platonic car-driving kind of way. Are you still here? Just go get one already.  Au revoir…3. Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI Tommi Makinen EditionIt was WRX verses Evo day in, day out for rally fans over a decade ago with only five of the ultimate Rex – the Subaru WRX STI 22B - ever released in Australia (and thus Buckley's chance of ever getting a steer of one these days). So you’ve got a much better chance of finding one of the 100 official Ralliart-imported examples of its contemporary adversary: the Mitsubishi Lancer 'Evolution' VI Tommi Makinen edition, which started arriving here in 2001. You may also know it by its colloquial name of ‘Evo 6.5’, and its 100-strong official figure has increased significantly thanks to grey import channels. Stomp the go-loud pedal and you get a blissfully rude shove in the back through the Recaro race seats as the turbocharged and intercooled, twin-cam, 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine hurtles the all-wheel-drive Evo into hyperspace almost instantly - or so it feels. That's what 373Nm from as low as 2750rpm and a claimed 0-100km/h of 4.6 seconds feels like, sling-shotting itself corner to corner as it snakes its way through rally stages.Why drive it: Even if you can’t drive like a rally driver you sure as heck would look the part with helmet on going through a fast-food drive-through. The rapid acceleration and sensation of speed even around town is not to be missed.  Buy one in red with the distinctive Makinen decal pack. The trainspotters will love it.4. Lotus Elise Mk2The swooping lines and curves of the lightweight 'waif-like' two-seat mid-engined roadster give it the looks to match its almost-supercar performance – thanks to its featherweight bonded aluminium chassis.The Series II Elise in 111S guise was the most powerful version of the last Rover K-Series engines, which were replaced by more reliable Toyota 1.8-litre VVTL-i units in 2004.The naturally aspirated Rover engine made 119kW and sent power to the rear wheels via a close-ratio five-speed manual gearbox.  With its kerb mass of just 860kg, it had a power-to-weight ratio to 'drive' for. This helped it sprint from 0-100km/h in 5.1 seconds and, combined with the agility of a cheetah, the Elise 111S is a true track car for the road.Why drive it: Everything about it is designed to connect the driver with the road. From the sports suspension to the hand-finished fibreglass body to the non-power-assisted brakes, it's a stripped-out and divinely raw driving experience. Plus it's got a removable roof, so that’s instant social media acceptability - regardless of your dress sense and questionable musical taste. 5. Mazda MX-5 ClubmanThe original MX-5 of 1989 didn't just win over hearts and minds with its pop-up-headlight happy face and cheeky looks. It was all about its exhilarating driving dynamics and handling. The front-engined MX-5 has 50/50 weight distribution and its nimble chassis is easily 'chuckable' on racetracks, happy to be coaxed into power-oversteer.Winding country roads and twisty bits are its forte, where the original 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine puts out a mere 86kW and is transferred to the rear wheels via a slick five-speed manual gearbox. It loves to rev all the way to the limiter and it's a pleasure to use the stick shift as each short throw snicks crisply into gear. Many say the track-focussed MX-5 Clubman of 1994 was the highlight of the first generation, with the later 98kW, 1.8-litre engine teamed with an exotic Torsen limited-slip differential and Bilstein suspension all around. No power steering though, so it will save you some gym time.Why drive it: Its neutral balance and superbly set-up handling simply needs to be experienced by driving aficionados and curious punters alike. Testimony to what a winning formula the MX-5 is, the fourth-generation was released only recently with all indications it too will be a collectable driver’s car for many years to come.When the Mk2 Golf replaced the gorgeous Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed Mk1 of 1976, the bigger and heavier second-generation had a heck of a reputation to live up to. The 16v GTI was the halo car and its superb 113kW/tonne power-to weight ratio would only be matched three generations later by the Mk5 GTI, which arrived here in 2005. Unfortunately, Australia only got the 8v Mk2 GTI, so getting behind the wheel of a privately imported 16v is a rarity, making the modern Mk5 interpretation a more realistic proposition. One of the best handling hot hatches produced at the time, the front-drive 2.0-litre turbo Mk5 Golf GTI made the most of its 147kW, laying down the challenge to WRXs and Type-R Hondas. The best news these days is they can now be had for about the same coin as a basic city runabout.Why drive it: With the Mk3 and Mk4 GTIs losing the hot-hatch plot, the Mk5 was the long-awaited correction to the bloodline and one not to be missed.YOUR CALLThat’s just our top six budget driver’s cars, but other notable mentions include the E36 BMW M3, B5-Series Audi RS4, R32 Nissan Skyline ‘Godzilla’ GT-R, Honda Integra DC2 Type R and the BMW-era Mini John Cooper Works.

Is 2017 the year of the new car for your garage? It's pretty easy to work out what's available now, but here are the most exciting models that are yet to arrive in showrooms.

No matter who you are or where you live, the first question anyone who is about to dip their toe into the electrified water of EV ownership asks is always the same; how long does it take charge an electric car? (Followed by, can I have a Tesla please?)The answer is a complicated one, I’m afraid, as it depends on the car and the charging infrastructure, but the short answer is this; not as long you might think, and that figure is dropping all the time. Nor, as most people tend to think, is it likely that you’ll need to charge it every day, but that’s another story.The easiest way to explain it all is to examine those two elements - what kind of car do you own and what kind of charging station will you be using - separately, so you have all the facts at your fingertips. What type of car do you own?As it stands, there are really only a handful of pure-electric cars on sale in Australia at the moment, with products from Tesla, Nissan, BMW, Renault, Jaguar and Hyundai. Though that number will grow, of course, with models due from Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Kia and more - and political pressure building to increase the number of EVs on our roads.Each of those brands quotes different charging times (largely dependent on the size of each car's battery packs).Nissan says charging its Leaf from zero to full can take up to 24 hours using the standard power at your house, but if you invest in a special 7kW home charger the recharge time drops to around 7.5hrs. If you use a rapid charger, you can top up the battery from 20 per cent to 80 per cent in around an hour. But we’ll come back to charger types in a moment. Then there’s Tesla; the brand that made EVs cool measures its charge time on a distance-per-hour scale. So for the Model 3, you’ll get around 48km in range for every hour of charging that your car is plugged in at home. A Tesla Wall Box or an on-the-road Supercharger will significantly reduce that time, of course.Enter Jaguar, with its i-Pace SUV. The British brand (the first of the traditional premium marques to get an EV to marker) claims an 11km per hour recharge rating using home power. The bad news? That roughly equals 43 hours for a full charge, which seems staggeringly impractical. Installing a special home charger (which most owners will) increases that rate to 35km of range per hour.Finally, we’ll look at Hyundai’s just-launched Kona Electric. The brand says from empty to 80 per cent of charge takes nine hours and 35 minutes, using a home wall unit, or 75 minutes using a fast-charging station. Plugged into the mains at home? That’ll be 28 hours for a full charge of the battery pack.How long do the batteries in an electric car last? The sad truth is that they begin to degrade, albeit slowly, from the first time you recharge, but most manufacturers offer an eight-year battery warranty if something should go wrong. What kind of electric car charger do you use?Ah, this is the part that really matters, as the type of charger you use to power you EV can cut time off the road to a fraction of that you’d spend if you only do your top up by drawing mains power.While it’s true that most people think they’ll be charging their vehicle at home, simply plugging it into the mains when they get home from work, that’s actually the slowest way to pump juice into your batteries. The most common alternative is to invest in “wall box” infrastructure at home, be it from the manufacture themselves of via an aftermarket provider like Jet Charge, which increases the rapid flow of power to the car, usually to around 7.5kW.The most well-known solution is Tesla’s Wall Box, which can up the power output to 19.2kW - enough to deliver 71km per hour of charging for the Model 3, 55km for the Model S and 48km for the Model X.But just as with an internal-combustion-engined vehicle, you can still recharge while on the road, and when you do, you don’t want to spend the better part of an entire day glued to a power point. Enter, then, fast charging stations, which are specifically set up to get you on the road as quickly as possible using a 50kW or a 100kW flow of power.Again, the best-known of these are the Tesla Superchargers, which have started being phased in on freeways and in cities on the east coast of Australia, and which recharge you battery pack to 80-per-cent full in around 30 minutes. They were once (unbelievably) free to use, but that was only ever going to last so long. There are other options, of course. Most notably the NRMA, which has begun the roll out of a free-for-members network of 40 fast-charging stations around Australia. Or Chargefox, which is in the process of installing “ultra-fast” charging stations in Australia, promising between 150kW and 350kW of power, which can deliver some 400km of range in 15 minutes. Porsche is also planning to rollout its own chargers around the world, which are, cleverly, called Turbo Chargers.

We spend weeks comparing new car performance and prices... then fall for a shiny one.