Renault Made a Batmobile to Smash Records

Leave it to the French to stun us with wacky concepts. After Alpine’s sleek supercar with a hydrogen V-6 engine, its parent company, Renault, has come up with something even more extravagant. It’s called the Filante Record 2025, an ultra-efficient demo car developed exclusively to highlight efficiency. The radical single-seater EV fitted with an 87-kWh battery pack aims to break records for power consumption and range.

Although it looks like it traveled back from the future, the electric “Batmobile” pays tribute to three vintage Renaults created to smash land speed records. For example, the round headlights take after 40 CV des Records from the mid-1920s, while the wheels pushed outward of the body are a nod to the 1934 Nervasport des Records. Moreover, the arches are inspired by the gas turbine-powered 1956 Etoile Filante.

As you can tell, it’s a huge car. But although it stretches 201.5 inches (5.12 meters) long, it only weighs 2,204 pounds (1,000 kilograms). The battery pack alone tips the scales at 1,322 lbs (600 kg), which is a lot, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles with EVs. Side note–the GMC Hummer EV’s gargantuan 205-kWh pack weighs a colossal 2,818 lbs (1,278 kg), so about as much as a compact European car.

Despite being imposingly long, the Filante Record 2025 is only 67.3 inches (1.71 meters) wide and 46.8 inches (1.19 meters) tall. Every surface of its streamlined body has been designed to maximize aerodynamic efficiency and extend range. Renault won’t test the car until later in the first half of the year but expect some huge gains over a Scenic E-Tech compact electric crossover fitted with an identically sized 87-kWh battery.

But how does the concept car weigh only 882 lbs (400 kg) once you exclude the battery? Renault made the chassis from a unique combination of aluminum, carbon, and steel alloys. In addition, the engineers used a high-strength aluminum alloy intended for 3D printing. Combined with artificial intelligence, simulation software allowed Renault to pinpoint areas where they could eliminate excess materials.

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Renault

To further reduce weight, the cells are integrated into the battery pack without intermediate modules. The concept doesn’t use the same battery as the Scenic E-Tech since a specially designed pack (with a carbon casing) was necessary to fit into the slender body. According to Renault, tires have a 20% impact on an EV’s range. Therefore, the Filante Record uses 19-inch bespoke Michelin rubber to reduce energy dissipation and better flatten the contact patch.

Mercedes managed to extract 8.4 miles (13.5 kilometers) per kWh from its Vision EQXX concept, but Renault’s eco machine is far more radical and is likely to beat the much heavier Merc with ease.