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Renault Megane gets family facelift for Frankfurt

Automotive designers tread a thin line in making their lineup look consistent. Get it right and there'll be a familiar appearance to the whole range; get it wrong and all the cars will look the same and you won't be able to tell the difference between them. Now Renault has updated one of its core model lines in an effort to put it on the right side of that line.
Renault has tweaked the nose on its full Megane range, including the three-door hatch, five-door hatch and wagon as well as the Renaultsport and GT variants. The changes revolve principally around the new larger grille dominating the fascias of Renault's latest models. All three bodystyles get the same front bumper and hood as well as new elliptical headlights, while the sportier versions get their own look with gloss black headlight surrounds.
The updated models will debut in Frankfurt this week, where we'll be able to see how the changes come across in person and against the backdrop of the rest of the Renault lineup.

Renault teases 'premium' Frankfurt concept

Nobody does 'premium' like Renault - and we do mean nobody. The French automaker has thrown all manner of projectiles at Europe's luxury car market dartboard over the years, including the left-field Vel Satis and Avantime 'coupe' of the 2000s - models that looked more like MPVs than traditional premium cars. Today, Renault still offers its po-faced Latitude sedan, but the badge-engineered Korean Samsung SM5 hasn't caught on - even among Francophiles. In fact, the whole idea of French luxury is almost nonexistent in today's marketplace, with the Citroën C6 having recently gone out of production.
But judging by this teaser photo for next week's Frankfurt Motor Show, Renault may not be willing to cede the upper end of the market just yet. Along with the tightly cropped image of the headlamp above, Renault has issued a statement saying it will unveil a "new concept car which embodies its vision of Premium motoring."
There's no further details to go on, other than a statement saying this is the "latest opus in Renault Design's lifecycle-based series of concept cars," all of which will be displayed at the show. That grouping of six showcars, we might add, was designed under Laurens van den Acker's leadership, with such notables as the stunning 2010 DeZir coupe and scissor-doored Captur concept of 2011. Whatever this unnamed concept turns out to be, we're guessing it'll be unmissable.

Carlos Tavares steps down as Renault COO

Renault has long been lead by two guys named Carlos. One is Carlos Ghosn, who presides as chairman and CEO not only over Renault, but also Nissan. That makes Ghosn one of the busiest guys in the business, and leaves Renault's day-to-day to the other Carlos - Carlos Tavares.
Or at least he did, until Tavares stepped down from his post as Chief Operating Officer, which he's held since May 2011. Renault only states that Tavares is leaving "in order to pursue other personal projects," but by personal, we assume they mean professional.
Tavares, as you may recall, made headlines recently by stating that he'd like to move to Michigan to run either General Motors or Ford. Which seemed a little odd at the time, considering that he'd be an outsider, but then Sergio Marchionne has been doing a pretty decent job of running Chrysler.

Watch and hear Renault's awesome Twin'Run driven in anger

We're a little tardy in getting to this, but the engine notes will make up for the delay. When Renault revealed the Twin'Run concept at the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix earlier this Summer, it didn't reveal much of the engine note. This was an appalling shame, since the not-road-legal Renault 5 revival had a mid-mounted, race-tuned Nissan V6 that could soar to a practically unsilenced 7,000 rpm.
A few members of the auto journo cabal have corrected that, Top Gear being one of them by including the Twin'Run in its Speed Week festivities. Calling it "deafening, smelly, brilliant," the verdict of Sam Phillip was that it "makes every car on Top Gear's Speed Week... feel as woolly and distant as a tumble-dried sheep." Them's pointed words when "every other car" includes metal like the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black Series.
You'll can check out Top Gear's run around the Charade Circuit in France below. We've also included a longer clip of the Twin'Run doing some dynamic testing (worth it for the 360-degree-stunt alone), and an in-depth piece from Autoweek Holland.

Renault COO Tavares dreams of running GM or Ford

What do you do if you're in a job with no upward mobility? Admittedly, most of us just stick it out while secretly hoping our boss is sacked for all those paperclips he's been swiping, netting us a nice, shiny promotion. Then again, most of us aren't the number two at Renault, like Carlos Tavares.
Tavares is the right-hand man to Renault CEO, Carlos Ghosn, and like a lot of us, he's ready for another challenge. As Ghosn is only 59 years old and doesn't have a boss to fire him for paperclip theft, though, it's pretty unlikely that he'll be going anywhere anytime soon. Tavares doesn't seem too concerned, based on an interview he gave to Automotive News. "We have a big leader and he is here to stay," Tavares told AN.
What's surprising is where Tavares wants to go, "Why not GM? I would be honored to lead a company like GM." The Renault exec also mentioned Ford, and as AN points out, both organizations make a lot of sense. Both are led by CEOs that are approaching or are already past retirement age, and should be looking for dedicated replacements in the not-so-distant future. That doesn't mean Tavares is a shoe-in, though.

Renault promises new concept car and Dacia Duster in Frankfurt

Renault and Dacia will be headed to the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show in a big way, with a new concept car from the French company and an all-new Duster from its Romanian budget brand. The new concept is particularly exciting, as Renault's press release mentions a "new brand identity." We can also count on this car being a bit higher on the luxury scale than Renault's traditional offerings.
Dacia's new Duster will have big shoes to fill when it hits the spotlights of Frankfurt. The current Duster (pictured), a small, handsomely rugged CUV, was introduced in 2010, and has been a critical hit in Great Britain, Russia, and India (where it's called the Renault Duster). It's also been a smash with customers, becoming Renault's best-selling global model.
Both the new Duster and Renault's latest concept will hit the stage in Frankfurt on September 10.

Renault-Nissan zero-emissions car sales whir past 100,000 [w/video]

The electric vehicle has gone gold at Renault-Nissan, clocking 100,000 sales in a three-year period that began with the first Nissan Leaf being sold in Silicon Valley, California in 2010. Since then, the Leaf has become the EV champion of the world, selling more than 71,000 units so far, the majority of those in the US. The 100,000th EV sold by the Alliance was also a Leaf and also sold in the US, but on the other side of the country, in Georgia.
By comparison, Renault has sold 30,000 electric vehicles since late 2011, looking after other segments of the EV market with the Kangoo Z.E., Zoe, Twizy and Fluence Z.E. The alliance estimates that its efforts have been driven 5.2 million ion-powered miles and saved 14 million gallons of oil since they appeared. For a bit of sobering context, the US averaged 18.83 million barrels of oil per day in 2011, which is almost 791 million gallons. Per day.
So we're getting there, albeit slowly. Quietly. There's a press release and a video below with more details on the achievement.

Renault Alpine mule captured wearing Lotus duds

A curious, heavily modified Lotus Exige has been spotted lapping the Nürburgring, and, to hear our spy shooters tell it, the car is actually a disguised Renault Alpine A110-50 out chassis testing with Swedish suspension company Öhlins. It was spotted in the company of several key performance cars from Renault Sport, including the Megane RS and Clio. These spy photos confirm that Renault is serious about making the Alpine a production reality and suggests that it needed more than its alliance with Nissan to help foot the development bills.
Caterham became Renault's partner in this venture last year, and rumors have suggested that this Lotus-disguised Alpine will be mid-engined, with a turbocharged four-cylinder engine offering about 1.6 liters of displacement and making around 270 horsepower.
We have reported in the past that Renault, Infiniti and Lotus were developing a gas-electric hybrid together, and the Renault version could become the Alpine (with Lotus building the production versions of all three cars), but we don't truly know what the future holds for Renault's reborn performance division.

Caterham chairman confirms plans for Renault-based Evoque rival

Caterham will be radically expanding beyond its core market of track-day specials with a new Renault-based CUV and city car. Following our initial reports back in November, the new models, which we can only hope are as ridiculously sporty as Caterham's other offerings, have been confirmed by Chairman Tony Fernandes to news agency Reuters.
Destined for Asian markets in 2016, the new offerings are to be based on Renault platforms, although the particular models aren't mentioned. Partially completed vehicles will be shipped to Asia, where assembly will be finished. This news follows the initial collaboration between Caterham and Renault for a new sports car, which will wear an Alpine badge. According to Fernandes, "Sports cars will do well but the city car and SUV are what the (Asian) market really wants. If we get the SUV right it will be huge."
Details about the SUV (read: crossover) are scarce, but the success of the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque was mentioned as an influence to get into the high-riding business. Given that vehicle's size, we wouldn't be surprised to see it based on the new Renault Captur (shown), and the city car modeled on the Twingo.

Renault-Nissan debuts new Common Module Family for future vehicles

Platform sharing is nothing new for the 14-year-old Renault-Nissan Alliance, but this partnership is set to introduce new modular platform components that will eventually underpin 11 Renault models and three Nissan vehicles by 2020. Rather than being a typical platform, the Common Module Family (CMF) actually represents five segments of a platform that can be used in various applications, and one of the first vehicles to use this architecture will be the 2014 Nissan Rogue (spy shots of which are shown below) when it arrives "in late 2013."
As pictured in the image above (click to expand), CMF is composed of four chassis component, principally the front underbody, rear underbody, engine bay and cockpit as well as a common electrical system. Besides the next-gen Rogue, future Nissan models to share CMF will include the Qashqai and X-Trail, while Renault models will start using the platform next year on vehicles including the Scénic and Laguna. The CMF architecture is expected to help the Alliance reduce the parts cost of a vehicle by up to 30 percent and reduce the entry cost by up to 40 percent. The official press release with more details about CMF, and what it means for Renault-Nissan, is posted below.