The focus for the interior of future Renault models will be on “simplification”, adding “the most important question is how do we reinvent interactions in screens in a revolutionary enough way so that it’s really a relief, a game changer, so that you’re like, ‘oh my god, it’s so simple’.”
Renault 5 and 4 future secure despite design shift
Despite the shift away from the design inspiration used for the 5, 4 and Twingo, Vidal confirmed that Renault still has long-term plans for this models – and they will continue to build on their current design language.
“Those three little cars can be fairly timeless,” he said. “We’d don’t know what we will do 15 years from now, of course, but for sure in seven years, more or less, it should be the end of the run of the current 5, and we should do a new one. But we shouldn’t do something different, because it would be weird to do something futuristic.”
Vidal said that those cars would take an evolutionary approach with their basic design remaining the same. He cited the new Fiat 500 – the revival of which was spearheded by now-Renault boss Luca de Meo – as the approach Renault would take.
“Instead of doing three-and-a-half [years] then a facelift, another three-and-a-half then a new one and so on, we can do something a bit like the 500: it’s been facelifted strongly, yet you recognise it all the time. It’s a clever thing to do with such a strong product.
“It’s the same for us. We want to animate the life of those products quicker than the facelift, with collections, new liveries and trims, and freshen it up fairly often. At some point it will probably get a heavier redesign without losing the soul and the spirit, and in theory that could be fairly timeless.”
