New Renault Austral review

Opinion is divided on whether hybrid working improves staff efficiency, but it certainly makes some cars more efficient – which is perhaps why the Renault Austral is only available in the UK as a hybrid.

The Austral is a regular hybrid family SUV powered by a petrol engine helped by a small battery and an electric motor. That not only allows you to drive short distances on electric power alone but also promises to reduce fuel consumption.

Of course, the Austral is far from the only model that does that. For example, you might also consider the Ford Kuga, Honda ZR-V, Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage or Toyota C-HR. The Tucson, Sportage and C-HR are also available in plug-in hybrid form with a much longer electric range.

The Austral has been given a mid-life 2025 update with changes to improve comfort, including softer suspension, increased sound-deadening and more supportive front seats. So has Renault done enough to make it is one of the best family SUVs available? Let's find out...

The Renault Austral sits in the middle of the hybrid family SUV landscape when it comes to performance. Its petrol engine and electric motor combination delivers a total output of 197bhp for an official 0-62mph time of 8.4 seconds (we managed 0-60mph in 8.8 seconds at our test track).

While that’s enough to show a clean pair of heels to the equivalent Kia Niro and the 1.8-litre version of the Toyota C-HR, it's a bit slower than the Honda ZR-V, Kia Sportage HEV and Nissan Qashqai e-Power.

The Austral’s hybrid system always favours its 67bhp electric motor, which isn’t particularly muscular. The petrol engine will wake up to lend a hand to bolster performance, but it means there’s a pause before it does so if you ask for a sudden burst of pace (to overtake, for example).

Switching from Comfort mode to Sport improves the response by keeping the engine running to help out more often, but the Tucson and Sportage HEV, as well as the ZR-V, are still a bit more immediate.

The Austral scores back points if you drive more sedately, allowing the motor to do more work than the engine. That’s because it can travel slightly further on electric power than many regular hybrids. Although its 1.7kWh (usable capacity) battery is tiny by electric car standards, it’s bigger than the batteries in direct rivals. As a result, it makes urban motoring a pleasingly silent affair.

Even when the engine fires up it remains relatively subdued. You hear a bit of wind noise from around the windscreen pillars, along with some road noise generated by the relatively big wheels, but it's far quieter than the ZR-V.

When the Austral was launched, top-spec Iconic Esprit Alpine models featured a rear-wheel steering system, called 4Control, but that's been ditched. It's no great loss because in its more responsive settings 4Control made the car feel nervous and hard to place on the road.

Without the system, the Austral is a lot more reassuring to drive, although it still leans more than a Cupra Formentor or Seat Ateca when you're driving spiritedly. The one caveat is that you need to put the steering weight in its Medium or High setting. Low is so light and vague that you can still lose track of where the front wheels are pointing.

Ride comfort is another element that's been improved by ditching the rear-wheel steering, which had a bespoke rear suspension set-up that caused the car to jostle its occupants around almost constantly.

The standard suspension is more settled, although the Austral still falls well short of the Kia Sportage and Skoda Karoq when it comes to suppleness, with occupants subjected to more jostling in their seats over bumps and potholes.

It’s also quite tricky bringing the Austral to a smooth stop because the brake pedal doesn’t blend its regenerative braking system with conventional brakes very well. There’s not much braking effect when you initially press down on the pedal and the friction brakes can be grabby as they bite at the end.

You can adjust the strength of the regen effect by using paddles behind the steering wheel, which is useful in stop-start traffic (and something you can also do in a Hyundai Tucson).

“The Austral has one of the most unusual hybrid set-ups I've encountered. Its petrol engine is connected to a four-speed automatic gearbox and the electric motor has two gears of its own.” – Lawrence Cheung, New Cars Editor

The driver’s seat in the Renault Austral has plenty of side support to hold you in place, and plenty of adjustment, including for lumbar support. Mid-spec Techno Esprit Alpine models and above also get electric adjustment and a massage function to improve long-distance comfort.

As a bonus, the driving position is slightly more commanding than in a Honda ZR-V or Kia Niro. And while it's not as elevated as in the Hyundai Tucson and Kia Sportage, the forward view out of the Austral is still great, thanks to a low dashboard and windscreen pillars that don't block too much of your view.

True, the rear window is rather small, but all versions come with all-round parking sensors and a camera to compensate. Meanwhile, adaptive LED headlights that allow you to use high beams without dazzling other road users are standard too.

The dashboard is dominated by large screens: a 12.3in digital driver's display and a 12.0in portrait-oriented touchscreen through which you operate the infotainment system.

Some people will find the driver's display is partially obstructed by the steering wheel if it’s set low, but it otherwise works well, with crisp graphics and a good range of information. It can show a full-width sat-nav map and there's a head-up display that projects your speed and other info on to the windscreen.

The infotainment software itself is very impressive, but some of the icons on the touchscreen can be hard to read and hit when you’re driving. More positively, you get a moveable rest on the centre console to help steady your hand a bit, and there are proper physical controls to adjust the air-con and change the driving modes.

The only area that takes a bit of time to get used to is on the steering column, with three stalks mounted on the right-hand side. With one for the gear selector, one for the windscreen wipers and one for the media controls, it does feel a bit busy.

The Austral comes with plenty of soft-touch finishes and a good range of materials on the surfaces at eye level, with cheaper plastics hidden lower down. That said, while it all looks appealing, the ZR-V, Tucson and Sportage feel more robust.

“I like the fact that the Austral's infotainment screen is portrait rather than landscape orientated because it allows you to see further ahead when you’re viewing the sat-nav map.” – Steve Huntingford, Editor

Up front, the Renault Austral has enough leg, head and shoulder room to keep 6ft-plus occupants happy. Plus, there are lots of useful storage cubbies, including a sunglasses holder in the roof that doubles as a convex rear passenger mirror for keeping an eye on kids in the back.

The door pockets are big enough to take decent-sized bottles of water, and there's a sizeable cupholder below the infotainment screen. The only trouble is, if you put a drinks can in that cupholder, you can't slide the hand rest forwards enough to get full access to the storage area underneath it.

The back seats slide back and forth (a rare feature among hybrid family SUVs) to allow you to juggle on boot space and rear leg room. There’s more knee room than in a Kia Sportage when the seats are slid all the way back. The backrests recline but head and shoulder room are not as generous as in the Sportage. Indeed, three adults in the back will find it a squeeze.

With the rear seats slid back as far as they'll go, the Austral's 487-litre boot capacity is more generous than the Honda ZR-V but less than an equivalent Hyundai Tucson or Kia Sportage. And with the Austral's rear seats pushed back so that you can fit adults in them, there's room for only six carry-on suitcases, whereas the Tucson and Sportage can both take eight.

You get some handy backrest release handles in the entrance to the boot to help you fold down the rear seats when loading longer items. Unfortunately, the seats fold in a 60/40 split (rather than the more versatile 40/20/40) and there’s an annoying step in the floor that you’ll need to lift items over.

“It's disappointing that you can't adjust the height of the boot floor but I found the underfloor storage area a handy size." – Will Nightingale, Reviews Editor

The Renault Austral is priced broadly in line with key family SUV rivals, whether you go for the cheapest version or the most expensive. What's more, resale values are predicted to be competitive, which is surprising given how poorly the Renault Kadjar (its immediate predecessor) held its value.

The fact that the Austral should still be worth a lot after three years is not only good news if you're planning to buy outright – it also helps to keep PCP finance costs sensible. You can check the latest prices on our New Car Deals pages.

We think entry-level Techno trim has enough kit to keep most buyers happy, including keyless entry and start, automatic climate control and a six-speaker Arkamys stereo.

Mid-range Techno Esprit Alpine adds heated and massaging front seats, a heated steering wheel, a powered tailgate and adaptive cruise control.

Meanwhile, range-topping Iconic Esprit Alpine cars give you a panoramic glass sunroof, upgrade the stereo to a 12-speaker Harman Kardon system and swap the standard rear-view camera for one that offers a 360-degree view.

The Austral's official CO2 output of less than 110g/km means company car drivers will pay less in BIK tax than for most regular petrol family SUVs, but a plug-in hybrid or electric car will be even cheaper tax-wise.

The official fuel economy of 58.9mpg beats most rivals too, including the Honda ZR-V and Nissan Qashqai e-Power. On our fuel-efficiency test route, we saw a figure of 49.4mpg, which is some way down on the official figure given by Renault but still better than the 45.2mpg we got from the ZR-V and the 43.8mpg from the Kia Sportage.

The safety experts at Euro NCAP gave the Austral a full five-star rating when they tested it in 2022, with it closely behind the Qashqai when you look more closely at the scores. All versions come with lane-keeping assistance, front and rear automatic emergency braking (AEB), traffic-sign recognition and a system that alerts the driver if their attention has wandered from the road.

In terms of reliability, Renault came ninth out of 31 car makers featured in our 2024 What Car? Reliability Survey – behind Toyota but just ahead of Hyundai and Kia, and way ahead of Nissan in 28th.

The standard Renault warranty of three years or 60,000 miles isn’t as generous as the seven and up to 10-year cover you get from Kia and Toyota.

“When I was looking at this year's What Car? Reliability Survey data, Renault's performance stood out because it's gone from 23rd place to ninth in a year.” – Claire Evans, Consumer Editor

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