Renault Symbioz review

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Renault's latest take on the family crossover promises spaciousness, affordability and efficiency. Does it deliver?

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Renault boss Luca de Meo has a knack for populism when it comes to new models, and the new Renault Symbioz demonstrates that clearly.

He is evidently very happy for the formerly alternative and once innovative volume car brand that he now runs to simply keep on bringing out the kind of cars that people are actually buying right now.

The French firm has a number of models on sale in the UK across the well-worn B-segment (supermini), C-segment (compact) and D-segment (mid-size) – and many of them could loosely be described as SUVs.

The Symbioz is one of those cars. It's a hybrid-powered, smaller sibling for the Austral, and between the two, Renault hopes to outnumber and outflank the likes of the Nissan Qashqai, Kia Sportage and Volkswagen Tiguan.

Described by Renault's small car design chief as "more rational and less emotional", it has purely been conceived for families and fleets with upright, boxy proportions, decent interior space and hybrid power. But does it live up to these credentials whilst truly differentiating itself from talented, wide-reaching competition?

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DESIGN & STYLING

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Renault Symbioz review side tracking

This is a 4.4m-long crossover that takes Renault’s CMF-B supermini platform (the same one used by the Clio and Captur) as its mechanical foundation. It’s only moderately high-rise in its profile, its roof height having been kept to around 1.6m so as to ensure a sensible frontal area and good aerodynamic efficiency. 

In the UK, it's offered only with a 141bhp full-hybrid powertrain, which combines a 1.6-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine with a 1.26kWh battery and gearbox-mounted electric motor. In total, the system develops 141bhp and 184lb ft for a top speed of 106mph and a 0-62mph time of 10.6sec.

In standard Techno trim, the Symbioz costs from just under £30,000. This makes it cheaper than many of its main rivals, including the equivalent Sportage, Qashqai, and Tiguan.

There’s quite a Germanic, sharply drawn ‘technical’ flavour to the styling of this car. It could almost be a new Volkswagen Golf Plus from some angles. To us, that rather seems to typify Renault’s philosophical move towards the middle ground of the volume car market in recent years – the emphasis it has put on quality, rationality, digital technology and neat if conventional design. 

“We’ve tried quirky,” the executives chirp, “and it didn’t sell nearly so well.” Fair enough. The Symbioz is certainly handsome, attractively detailed and well proportioned, and there’s a smartness and maturity about its look that’s likely to make it a desirable choice for those moving up from supermini-sized crossovers.

INTERIOR

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Renault Symbioz review interior

Renault makes much of the Symbioz's interior versatility, although in that respect it’s hardly segment-leading; you might even find yourself slightly short-changed.

Second-row passenger space is just about appropriate for full-size adults but is no great selling point in itself. The Skoda Kamiq offers just as much while the Skoda Karoq, with its optional removable back seats, knocks the Symbioz for six on outright carrying space.

What's more, if the car is fitted with Renault's optional Solarbay panoramic roof, which uses electrically charged liquid crystals to block out the sun as and when needed, six-footers will struggle for head room.

Renault does at least include a sliding back seat to boost boot space, but it moves only as one fixed bench, so it’s a bit awkward to heave fore and aft. 

With the seats slid all the way back, you create 492 litres of boot space, which is 12 litres less than in the Qashqai and nearly 100 litres less than in the Sportage. If you slide the bench forwards, capacity is increased to 624 litres – but a sizeable gap is left in the loadbay floor, primed and ready to swallow up and snag smaller items. With the rear bench folded, space stands at a generous 1582 litres.

The boot itself is usefully large and deep by class standards, with an adjustable-height floor, but it doesn't possess any features aside from this; items like a 12V socket are absent.

Up front, the driver’s seat is comfortable enough (although it lacks cushion adjustment options) and the control layout and displays are simple and sensible. Renault’s chunky transmission selector is a practical size and easy to grab without looking.

One gripe we have with driving position, however, is that because of the thick A, B and C pillars, visibility is poor with regard to blindspots, while the small rear window means you have to rely on the low-definition reversing camera when manoeuvring.

Renault’s Google-based Open R portrait-style infotainment system is easy to find your way around, with lots of app-based functionality best connected for those with Android-based smartphones. Renault claims the system can download more than 50 apps.

The digital driver's display, meanwhile, is clear and easy to read and has a decent amount of configurability, but switching between displays prompts a needlessly complex animation that can begin to lag after a while.

It does at least have a row of physical controls for the HVAC functions, which feel reassuringly sturdy, and the audio volume can be adjusted with a handy steering wheel-mounted stalk.

The car’s ADAS (it offers up to 24 of them, Renault proudly crows, between speed-limit buzzers, lane-keeping assistants, intelligent cruise control etc) are mercifully easy to neuter via a fixed physical shortcut button adjacent to the steering wheel.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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Renault Symbioz review side static

The Symbioz’s 138bhp hybrid system is the kind of powertrain that appeals to those who just like to select ‘D’ and then turn up the radio. It doesn’t give you options to change ratios on the four-speed gearbox yourself, and while it’s refined, torquey enough and agreeable around town, there are times out of town, when accelerating, that it seems a bit slow, noisy and strained - although mostly it cruises quietly. 

Strangely, the gearbox has been programmed to change from first to second at just over 30mph, which means that if you're travelling in a 30mph speed zone, the engine is much noisier than you want it to be. However, this isn't always an issue, because the car spends much of its time in electric-only mode when in town. 

Renault’s hybrid system does have an E-Save mode, but it’s nothing to do with electric-only running. Rather, you press it if you want to prep the car for intensive use: motorway driving, maybe, or climbing a steep mountain road.
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

If you want it to run on electricity for a prolonged and uninterrupted period, pressing 'E-save' on the dashboard will conserve up to 40% of the battery for use at a time of your choosing.

The drivetrain has clearly been tuned to reward careful driving. It gives you enough initial electric response for low-speed manoevring but then mutes the throttle response to avoid waking the engine up. This means it's relaxing to drive but never feels fast.

Make no mistake: the Symbioz isn’t ever assertively quick, because it wasn't designed to be; it’s more the style in which it accelerates. But the long, tall-seeming intermediate gear ratios and it sometimes kicking down to high revs for little apparent gain can create a certain sense of weediness about it.

Let it settle into an unremarkable, unhurried, everyday kind of travelling pace, though, and the powertrain just fades into the background.

RIDE & HANDLING

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Renault Symbioz review front tracking

The Symbioz rides and handles with the assurance that its powertrain sometimes lacks. In general, it isn't an unpleasant car to drive, exhibiting decent body control and respectable cornering grip and handling precision on winding lanes. 

At motorway speeds, it offers better refinement and isolation than rivals such as the Ford Kuga, and around town the steering is light but still sure-footed.

Its low-speed ride is quite unsettled, but above 40mph it becomes more pliant. It has a fairly taut, settled and composed high-speed motorway gait, so it's comfortable over longer trips.

It can struggle a little for traction out of tighter corners, while the biggish wheels and smallish sidewalls of higher-grade models and the suspension’s slight air of firmness make it less compliant at town speeds than some French SUVs, although they also deliver assured body control.

Coming to a smooth stop in the Symbioz can be quite tricky, however, as we didn't find the brakes to be especially progressive. The awkward pedal feel occasionally gave some of our passengers a queasy ride when travelling around town or in heavy traffic.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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Renault Symbioz review front three quarter

Whether you take it on a motorway, through town or on a mountain road, the Symbioz will comfortably return upwards of 55mpg. Over a 200-mile journey in a mixture of stop-start traffic and B-road driving, we averaged 63.4mpg, which is highly competitive for the class and should give a real-world range of around 500 miles.

Of course, being a full hybrid, it's the kind of compact family car that's likely to prove particularly efficient around town, where its economy figures could reach upwards of 70mpg.

Priced from less than £30,000, it's also good value compared with hybrid rivals. The cheapest Nissan Qashqai e-Power is more than 10% dearer, for instance, and the Kia Sportage Hybrid is pricier still.

For that, you get most of the kit you need, including 18in alloys, adaptive cruise control, LED headlights, a reversing camera, privacy glass, a 10.4in infotainment screen, a 10.25in driver's display and ambient lighting.

Stepping up to Esprit Alpine trim grants you racier trim pieces, 19in alloys and heated front seats, while top-rung Iconic Esprit Alpine is fitted with the clever Solarbay panoramic roof, a 360deg camera and hands-free parking.

All cars come with up to 24 ADAS functions, which can be turned off with one physical button. 

Key to its appeal with both families and fleets is its relatively low CO2 emissions figure of 107g/km, helping it to beat the Qashqai (142g/km) and Sportage (129g/km). You can buy the latter car with a plug-in hybrid powertrain to further reduce CO2, but this pushes its price further above that of the Symbioz.

The Symbioz's low CO2 rating and generous equipment levels should result in decent residual values, too, especially because Renault's track record on that is strong.

VERDICT

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Renault Symbioz review front three quarter tracking

The Symbioz driving experience juggles comfort with assured control, drivability and ease of use with the practised skill that we’ve become used to from Renault of late. It seems right-sized and smartly dressed too; fairly versatile, intelligently featured and smartly furnished; and decent value for money.

For all these reasons, it could do rather well for Renault - without ever being the sort of car that very many of us may recognise when we see one or tend to look twice at. 

Considering the fact that you’re paying a good deal less than you would for other cars of its type, it is easy to see the appeal of the Symbioz. But that doesn’t mean its talents aren’t generic; a lot of rivals offer more practicality, smoother powertrains and overall efficiency that is just as good.

For Renault, so long as there are also Méganes, Renault 5s and retro-cool new Twingos to admire, maybe we can live with that. But we do hope we’ll see a little more genuinely innovative spirit than this from the company’s more practical cars before too long.

Jonathan Bryce

Jonathan Bryce
Title: Editorial Assistant

Jonathan is an editorial assistant working with Autocar. He has held this position since March 2024, having previously studied at the University of Glasgow before moving to London to become an editorial apprentice and pursue a career in motoring journalism. 

His role at work involves writing news stories, travelling to launch events and interviewing some of the industry's most influential executives, writing used car reviews and used car advice articles, updating and uploading articles for the Autocar website and making sure they are optimised for search engines, and regularly appearing on Autocar's social media channels including Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Tesla Roadster, Ariel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren Senna, Renault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.