back to article Renault DeZir: 'leccy sex machine

Renault has released more information — and a series of teaser images — of its DeZir concept car, set to debut at October's Paris Motor Show. Renault DeZir concept car The Renault DeZir, inspired by 'liquid sensation, wave-like movement and contrasts in light' The all-electric two seater, Renault claims, will accelerate …

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  1. bcollie
    Coat

    Sounds about right

    Manages a meager 100m on a single charge, nice!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      100 meters on a single charge

      Sounds like fail batteries.

  2. MarkB
    Boffin

    Duty cycle

    So I can drive for around 2 hours (@ 50mph) and then charge for 8 hours?

    Sign me up!

  3. Shonko Kid
    Go

    Does it come in Petrol?

    No, seriously. Why can't renault make cars like this anyway?

    And, given that renault are notorious for electrical faults, is this really the way forward for them?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    I'm not a fan of the French

    or French cars.

    But that is damned sexy. And an 80 mile range with a 20 minute charge (at home, from mains-charged battery & inverter and at work, through the 3-phase line + expensive coffee for the boss & building manager) sounds pretty much perfect for 90% of my driving.

    If they can pull it into a decent price bracket, I'd actually consider buying it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Decent price?

      Your kidding, it's got a Kevlar body.

      So this, despite (hopefully) having a stupily low kerb weight (minus engine) it has an utterly has a crap range.

      So when (if) it goes into production with an ali body (most likely) , the range will drop. Unless they keep the massivley expensive kevlar body.

      Bring on the Porsche.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      Yeah but...

      ...it's still a Renault, and I therefore wouldn't buy it if it cost a fiver. But then maybe I just hate French cars. It's the styling- even in this one, it's just all wrong. And what's with the Delorean doors? Apart from anything else, all your spare change, sweet wrappers, and used tissues will fall out of the door pockets every time you open them.

      1. Marvin the Martian
        Stop

        sweet wrappers and used tissues?

        Why buy a great-looking car if you're going to treat it as a dustbin?! You, sir, don't deserve it.

        Hop, back to your reliant.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Actually,

          mine's a Micra. And I recently vacuumed it. Do you want to buy it? It's for sale.

  5. Alien Doctor 1.1
    FAIL

    Letters and numbers have no place here

    "Renault says the DeZir will have a 160km (100m) range"

    100 metres? I'll have to work out how many of these I'll need to buy to get to the shops and back.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    I'm not a fan of the British Cars

    Oh wait, there are no British cars anymore.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Go

      Oh wait, there are no British cars anymore

      Ultima, Caterham, Ariel, Westfield, Tiger....

      sorry you mean no MASS produced, goverment funded, jelly mould tin tops?

      FYI.

      Search for Ultima GTR and Tiger Z100WR to see how rubbish British cars are.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Morgan? Bristol?

      And a huge range of other specialist and kit cars. We just don't do that mass-market, common-as-muck stuff. Far classier than that.

      1. Nigel Whitfield.

        A lovely pair

        There were two Bristols parked outside the garage where I take my Citroën DS to get serviced when I last popped in.

        A lovely pair, they were...

    3. Jan 0 Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Errm

      IIRC TVR is the biggest British car manufacturer. Is Morgan still British?

      Are there any others?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Dont forget Noble.

        See title

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Unhappy

        TVR closed ages ago

        Well, sort of. It was bought up by a russian 24-year-old with a promise to keep it British... then he shifted the IP to his own company, announced a shift of the manufacturing to Turin and sacked a bunch of employees.

        By the looks of things, they're shifting to the US now.

        TVR _should_ be the UK's biggest manufacturer. I mean it produced cars that punched waay above their weight in terms of performance / cost, sounded fantastic and had styling that made the Italian's best efforts look a bit pedestrian.

  7. Chris Hatfield
    Thumb Up

    A car that you won't be embarrased to be seen in

    Have you seen those GWiz cars around London? They look like roller skates!

    This, on the other hand, looks great. It's no Tesla, but it's unlikely we'll be racing around central London.

  8. Anomalous Cowturd
    Boffin

    Looks nice...

    But look where they put the door handle. It's only a foot off the floor!

    Designed by a boffin? Unlikely.

  9. Thomas Gray

    Unlike Blighty

    Most French households have a three phase supply, so they can benefit from the rapid charge system.

    1. Captain TickTock
      Boffin

      Would you like us to fit a plug for you?

      20 years ago when I came here and bought an alarm clock, I had to do a double take when they asked me that.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nice...

    ... and bring back Nicole to advertise it.

    My commute to work is around 5miles each way, so a full charge would last the week and more. But to travel anywhere more meaningfull would require a round trip of almost 100miles (45miles to the nearest large city).

    So not much use for anything other than commuting, which is a shame - coz it sure is purty.

  11. Dale 3

    Gull wing doors

    The single feature that most guarantees this will never make it beyond the concept stage.

  12. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    "provides cocoon-like comfort."

    That'll be a refreshing change from the numb-arse-and-sciatica comfort that Renault seats are more usually associated with.

    Then again, the longer quote following that would seem to suggest that they wrote the PR while smoking something seriously illegal anyway, so it's probably bollocks.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    100 MILE range

    if you drive at 25 mph, or a range of 2.5 miles if you drive like Clarkson.

    When will people realise, at the moment, that electric powered vehicles have 2 uses

    1) Delivering milk

    2) Defeating the congestion charge

    They wont be any good until, until they take 3 mins to charge and you can do 1000 miles on a charge, at that point they will be kinda interesting.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I think you're being a bit demanding there

      Batteries will always suck for cars anyway, hydrogen fuel cells are the way forward with wind/wave/solar providing the leccy for the hydrogren to be produced.

      BUT for a daily drive such as to work and back 100 miles would be more than enough for most people.

    2. James 6

      2 Uses?

      I think you will find that most people do far less than 100 miles a day, and rarely go beyond that kind of range. So most people can benefit from these types of cars, particularly 2 car families where their other one is a normal oil fuelled model for the occasional long drive.

      Personally I drive a 10 mile each way trip to and from work and would happily drive something like this (although not necessarily this particular car) if it could make my daily drive cheaper, as well as more fun. Unfortunately the cost of the cars at this time are likely to make it more expensive, but I don't think we're too far off from getting decent priced electric cars.

      Admittedly a 100 mile range is a little on the low side, but the Tesla already demonstrates much longer ranges which are likely to get much better over the next few years. No oil fuelled cars I know of can do 1000 miles on one tank of fuel, so why would you expect it from an electric car?

      1. Intractable Potsherd

        I won't move to electric ...

        ... until it is as convenient as petrol/diesel. I want a range of at least 450 miles (equivalent to my current Subaru's range) at motorway speeds, refuelling from empty to full in 5 minutes maximum, and the ability to carry a cheap, lightweight backup just in case I run out of fuel, which can be applied quickly at the side of the road (or up a Derbyshire white in the middle of the night). Electric does not seem to meet any, let alone all, of these criteria, nor do they look likely to be met in the near future. And, to be honest, nothing else is close, either.

  14. spider from mars
    Go

    enough with the concept cars

    put something into production!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    What the moaners are forgetting...

    It costs an order of magnitude less to charge an electric car than the equivilent petrol cost, there are zero emissions and considerably less unwanted noise.

    The combined effects of Peak Oil and Climate Change mean that trying to maintain the status quo simply isn't a smart option.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      zero emissions

      Really, you ruined your argument right there.

      What makes your electricity? The free energy monster? We still are not a a stage where renewable or clean power generation are effective. Therefore you are still causing emissions. Just because they are not right under your nose does not mean they are not there.

      Though an argument of less localised pollution would have been better.

      1. styx-tdo
        Happy

        zero emissions

        austria. water power.

        your turn. :)

    2. Kevin Johnston

      Oh dear...

      hoist by your own petard there I'm afraid......where do you think that wonderful electricity comes from?

      A better option still at the moment is an LPG conversion for a standard petrol engined car. Half the price for the fuel, >80% of the range/performance and the only thing coming out of the exhaust is water vapour.

      Until you can provide VERY large scale solar/wind/geo-thermal electricity generators or accept that nuclear power is an option then you are stuck with fossil-fuelled power stations making electric cars a poor option taking into account transmission losses etc.

      1. Neil Lewis

        Sort of right...

        ..but it really isn't just water that comes out of the exhaust. It does actually make CO2 when it burns, just like any other hydrocarbon.

        Still, the part about needing cheap, pollution-free electricity generation before being able to claim that electric cars are environmentally friendly is true enough.

        There is one other point though. I get the impression that the manufacturers and dealers are much less happy about the reliability of electric vehicles in general -

        ... electric motors have fewer parts to wear out than an oil burner

        ... the need for an expensive and complex transmission is more or less eliminated due to the different torque characteristics

        ... there is no problem with lubricants being burned while the engine is operating, hence regular oil changes are not necessary

        ... reduced wear and tear on brakes since dynamic braking & KERS are such a natural fit

        So it may be much harder for dealers & garages to justify so much servicing. Of course, it may just happen that charges per hour go up substantially to compensate for the reduced number of hours of work required, like they did with the improvements in reliability of cars between the '80s and now.....

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      re: What the moaners are forgetting...

      You guys ever hear of Nuclear...?

      The French power zero emission long distance trains (TGV), trams and increasingly their local loop electric vehicles using it.

  16. Lottie
    Paris Hilton

    Vauxhall/ Lotus

    Does anyone else think it has shades of the VX220 about it? It's damn sexy!

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Bollox to this 4 wheeled nonsense...

    ...where's my flying car? The 1970's promised me one by 2000!

    Seriously though - we're still looking at batteries? We know they're crap already, so why not just jump straight to Fuel Cell?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    British Cars

    Don't forget Ginetta. 3 road going models as well as great racing versions, 2 of which run as support races for the BTCC.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh, didn't spot that either

    Bit more relevant...

    "Ginetta enter the low carbon vehicle arena for the first time with their Ginetta G50 Electric Vehicle. Using 100% electric power, this two-seater sports car is capable of 120 mph and has a range of 250 miles on a full charge."

    http://www.ginettacars.com/roadcar_range_details.php?id=5

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Cuddling

    So, a bench seat. In a sports car. In a country with corners. I prefer to choose when to cuddle, not to have an enforced one whenever I turn the wheel. Bucket seats are bucket-shaped for a reason.

  21. Michael 28
    Happy

    one thing i love about the leccy tech obsession.

    .... they haven't considered the requirements of the future economy. Most people won't buy one unless they HAVE TO. (ie, no more oil. )

    .... now just bear with me, and imagine one of these parked behind the business end of a horse at a roundabout.

    On the other hand, why bother with batteries at all, and go the "scalextric" route?

  22. David McMahon
    Thumb Up

    Only problem is

    Its real range is 50 miles! 50 there, 50 back! Unless of course you can use the electricity at your destination, also batteries fade after a few years/ few months

    They need battery stations where you pay to have the battery removed and replaced with freshly charged ones, two mins with a forklift sorted :)

    Also means the clock / radio / security would need a CR2032 like a motherboard! :)

    1. ian 22

      Fading batteries

      Interesting comment, that.

      I've wondered how Toyota's Prius batteries are doing, now that they have a good few years on them. Also, as an electric car needs no fiddling with engine timing or regular motor lubricant replacement, do battery replacements every 5th year (or so) total the same as 5 years of engine tuning and oil changes? Surely the savings in petrol count for something too.

      Carbon neutrality is all well and good, but what of the economics of the thing?

      We should be told...

  23. tom 24

    Cashing in on the tesla, or...

    Maybe they just thought "you call that a sports car? we can do better than that".

    No icon, because you don't have a "shrug"

  24. tim-e
    Troll

    Gearbox

    Does it have 1 forward and 5 reverse gears?

  25. Mips
    Jobs Horns

    "take time to play and attain wisdom"

    Sounds like it was designed by Confucius.

  26. Sam Therapy
    FAIL

    As stated above...

    The French make lousy cars, Renault being one of the worst. Apart from Citroen. Or Peugeot.

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