Comfy Scenic allows tired passengers to snoozeThe setting sun’s orange light sears between the low, flecked white clouds, casting a warm glow across the Renault Scenic E-Tech. Six hours into our journey, we’ve swapped the Essex coast for Pas-de-Calais’s, but my daughters display no impatience, no longing for their hotel beds.
This topography serves up a string of long sweeping bends down into Escalles. The Scenic has a really quick steering rack, and as I dip my wrists this way or that the nose responds, swinging obediently onto the cornering line. The offside wheels brace the car formidably and the body rolls gently on its pillowy suspension, and we carve effortlessly down the hill and into the village.Soon we’ll be on the A16, homing in on the Abbeville hotel that’s now just an hour away.
I crank up the volume using the stereo control pod branching off the steering wheel and the kids vehemently protest. ‘Dad, what’s that?’ ‘Turn it off, it’s hurting my ears!’ wails Flo. I relent and let them get back to their tech-sceptic protagonist, who would find the new Scenic an effortless gateway into good gadgetry.
Perso mode lets you mix and match different steering, powertrain and pedal calibrations, and channel your inner Goldilocks to select just the right combination of safety features. The Scenic E-Tech has up to 30 advanced driver and safety systems****, including blind-spot warning, lane-keeping assist, stop-and-go cruise control and emergency braking intervention. If you don’t like speed limit warning bongs or automatic steering inputs, you can turn them off.
Best of all, the iconic’s seat upholstery is 87 per cent recycled***** and there’s no leather whatsoever. That’s because the Scenic has been designed with sustainability at the fore: recycled plastics, aluminium and glass are used in some components, and the whole car has been designed to be 89 per cent recyclable at the end of life – including the battery******.
We converge on Paris’s answer to the Large Hadron Collider, the Arc de Triomphe. If there’s a more chaotic roundabout in Europe, I’m yet to drive it. But the Scenic shines in city traffic, the direct steering jinking it into fleeting gaps and avoiding strafing cars with an accelerator lift provoking max regen braking. Then when the traffic lurches forward, the motor provides instant punch to hold position.