Renault’s display at the Solutrans Commercial Vehicle Expo
When you think of Amazon, you think online retailer, right? Actually, Amazon is primarily a logistics company, incredibly skilled at receiving your order and payment and getting the goods from millions of suppliers to their warehouses and to your doorstep at minimum cost. Even if that means their drivers have to take a bottle with them on their rounds.
Logistics have been in the news for months now. When that giant container ship did a doughnut in the Suez Canal and got stuck, it stopped 12% of world trade. COVID and other factors have broken logistics worldwide, with Americans sans turkey and toilet paper for Thanksgiving, and the Brits with empty shelves because they have no truck drivers.
Why this intro? Because Solutrans just happened in Lyons, France, and this is the world’s biggest trade show for commercial vehicles, warehousing and logistics. And Renault arrived there with all the reserve normally displayed by Shrek.
Renault displayed 15 commercial vehicles, four of them world premieres, in a 1000m2 exhibition space. The new vehicles are the Kangoo Van E-Tech Electric, the new Renault Trafic van, the Master E-Tech Electric and the very exciting Master H2-Tech prototype. H2 is hydrogen and some of us can get overly excited about this power source, especially for larger vehicles. But that is another story.
Let’s look at the newcomers in more detail:
The Kangoo Van E-Tech Electric replaces the previous EV Kangoo which launched in 2011 and sold over 70 000 units in Europe. The new one will go 300km on a charge, has a 90kW engine and 45kWh battery that can charge for 170km range in 30 minutes. Even if you are operating in a big city like Joburg or Cape Town, you would either go the entire day on one charge or be able to quick charge at the depot when loading.
The new Trafic is the well-known van, completely redesigned, with a dCi engine ranging from 82kW to 127kW. It is designed with massive in-car connectivity, linking the van with your business and customers – the very essence of small scale logistics.
The Renault Master is a large van, that has been around in various guises since 1980, the 2.5 to 4.5-ton range panel van. The E-Tech Electric has a 52kWh battery that can go around 195km and be charged to 80% in two hours.
The Master H2-TECH prototype is obviously brand new. It hydrogen engine can take up to 19m3 around 250km. Once hydrogen is part of the fuel infrastructure – say having an H2 pump at your local fuel station, it will be as quick and easy to fill up as with petrol or diesel.
Most of the rest of Renault’s offerings at Solutrans are conversions, existing vehicles converted to specific purposes. These vary from a cherry picker to a wheelchair access van, a refrigerated van to an ambulance, and everything in between.
Logistics vehicles are the unseen lifeblood of society. Introducing new and better models should be, at least for some of us, as exciting as the launch of a new sports car. If that’s you, or you are at all interested in the car business, you can keep up with Renault news by .
