Tempo 180 for new cars – what Volvo has done, Renault is now also announcing. From 2022, vehicles with the diamond on the sheet metal, as well as vehicles from the subsidiary Dacia, will no longer be able to drive faster. This does not apply to Alpine – and probably not to everything else that currently operates under the Renault brand.
Why the self-restraint? Officially, they want to reduce the number of traffic accidents. Really? Except in Germany you won’t need too many fingers to count the crashes with a speed of 180+.
So why then? The answer is between the lines of a press release: “From 2022 the Mégane-E will be equipped with an automatic speed limiter that will limit the vehicle’s top speed to 180 km / h.” The first restricted car will be electrically powered. And is a speed limit unusual for e-cars? Not at all. Many of them manage to work much earlier, because the range is so extremely reduced when you drive fast. And which manufacturer wants to bother with German customers for whom the range is too short.
In addition: The French will not proceed as consistently as Volvo, even if the announcement sounds the same at first glance. So, yes, no Renault will be able to go faster than 180 km / h. But.
The trick with the name
Do you really want to trim cars like the Renault Mégane RS that way? Corn non. Renault General Director Luca de Meo already spoke in autumn 2020 that the Renaults with the RS in their name could in future be called Alpine. Who invented it? Luca de Meo himself when he was still in the service of Seat. The Spanish VW subsidiary recently turned the sports word Cupra into its own brand. For example, the Seat Leon Cupra became the Cupra Leon. So let’s not be surprised if Renault’s sporty compact will be called Alpine Mégane in the future. Alpine remains exempt from the 180 ban.
The Dacia brand cars are also limited to 180 km / h. But that doesn’t mean that all Dacias will reach this speed. Even now, a Dacia Duster TCe 90 comes up to 166 km / h, a Sandero SCe 65 only reaches 158 km / h. We don’t even need to talk about the Dacia Spring Electric savings electric vehicle. Incidentally, it also applies to Lada. But would we want to go faster in a Lada? Njet.
In truth, Renault’s Tempo 180 announcement is not as special as one might think. Because by 2025 the proportion of electrified passenger cars of the brand should be 65 percent. A share of at least 90 percent is then planned for 2030. And even now Renault’s plug-in hybrids stop accelerating below 180 km / h.
Everything that drives faster will simply no longer be called Renault. I guess.