it’s been a while since i found a car as innovative as the renault mégane e-tech electric. with a range of ca. 400 km it does not impose stress (range anxiety) on me. it’s fun to drive this vehicle. i had no fun driving the volkswagen ID 3. it’s a matter of style. the pure electric mégane has style. the german counterpart is solid engineering work, but not much more. the mégane is solid engineering work with a sex appeal.

i like to look underneath. electric cars obviously have no combustion system. what a clean layout of the buttom of basically all electric vehicles!

below the renault logo is the radar sensor which – in combination with the camera in the front window – detects the traffic in front quite effectively. and it also helps keeping the car on track. when the lane assistance is activated the car follows the lane and keeps a safe distance from the car in front. when a bicyclist suddenly crosses the street 20 meters ahead of me, the car engages the brakes.

at the very bottom of the front are the air intakes for cooling the engine:

the car officially comes with two battery sizes, where only the bigger one can be ordered as of summer 2022. for a 1.6 ton vehicle i would always choose the bigger battery. the engine is 160 kW strong, which translates into pathetic 220 horsepower. electric cars accelerate nicely from zero to 100, but i also enjoyed accelerating from 100 to 160 km/h – which is its maximum speed. with lane assist activated you can travel smoothly for hours. and when the car runs into a traffic jam, the system brakes safely.

the engine is mounted pretty high under the hood, which makes the car not exactly a master for handling sharp curves.

i used to (try to) repair my own (old) cars back in the 1970s and 80s. when i open the hood of a combustion vehicle these days i at least recognise a few key elements like the starter and the alternator. with electric cars i’m pretty much lost. there is liquid cooling, but where? all i know is that all orange coloured elements are part of high voltage system.

this is the charging lid. when you open it you have the usual choice of plugs.

at 70% the range indicated about 300 km. when i started my week of testing the megane e-tech, the full (100%) charge showed a range of 370 km. after my week of (certainly not high speed) driving 100% charge offered 440 km. obviously, the system learns and not only adapts to the weather conditions and city vs. autobahn, but also to your driving style.

the pseudo-gold fender in plastic is not exactly my taste. but the car is very sweet. and half an hour before driving to the lake i use the app to pre-cool the mégane, parked a few minutes away, down from 25 to 21°C.