Styling
The angular styling of the Gilles Vidal era of Renault's corporate aesthetic suits the Rafale very well indeed. In high-ranking Iconic Esprit Alpine trim, on its 20-inch 'Castellet' black diamond-finished alloys and in classy Summit Blue with a Black Diamond roof (£1,250 for this combination), it really cuts a dash and conveys the believable impression that it could potentially tempt customers to ignore putting their money down on a
BMW X2 instead (the impending new X4 will likely vault into ever more distant pricing echelons when it arrives, so maybe Renault needs to aim a little lower in the Munich portfolio these days).
It's also a sizeable old thing, measuring more than 4.7 metres from tip to tail, and with its sculpted sides, tapering glasshouse, vertical rear and attractive front-end design, we heartily approve of the look of the Rafale. It's not just that it's better to behold than an Arkana (not much of a high visual bar to have to clear, that), but also that it's one of the nicest, most proportional and least offensive coupe-SUVs we've yet seen from any manufacturer at any price.
Interior
Another high-class Renault interior can be found in the Rafale, although in fairness the general design of the fascia is present in almost all of the company's other crossovers and SUVs in 2025 - for instance, we had this vehicle on test on a back-to-back basis with the
C-segment Austral and, to be honest, once you were installed behind the wheel then there was precious little to tell them apart. That either reflects very well on the Austral, or perhaps might make Rafale buyers wish their flagship model had a little more interior individuality to justify the additional purchasing outlay, but whichever view you take, the general quality of the Renault's passenger compartment cannot be faulted.
Centred on a three-screen arrangement formed of the 12.3-inch instrument cluster, the 12-inch OpenR infotainment array and the 9.3-inch head-up display for the driver, the Rafale manages to give the impression of being high-tech, all without proving itself utterly infuriating to use when the SUV's on the move. There's a useful smattering of physical switchgear, while the company has mercifully resisted trying to cram every possible column-stalk-related control onto a single stem, although you could at first glance say the profusion of stalks to the right of the wheel is a touch baffling. Cleverly, Renault makes each item positioned there a different shape: the gearlever, the highest, is crooked and hexagonal in profile, the wiper stalk in the middle is a more familiar cylindrical affair, and then lower down is the chunky, oblong edifice which has served as Renault's volume controls for what feels like decades now. Anyway, it means you won't ever reach for the 'wrong' stalk or unwittingly activate an incorrect function when you're driving the car, forcing you to take your eyes off the road to see if you've just erroneously flashed the vehicle in front instead of washing the windscreen as you actually intended.
There are some annoyances, mind. In the Rafale, just like in the Austral the week before, the heated steering wheel button on the screen was stupidly recalcitrant. It takes one light press of the central touchscreen to get either of the front heated seats to come on, but for some reason the wheel icon right next to them always needed three jabs to get it to operate. Even a long press didn't seem to work, and on the Rafale the heated windscreen graphic did much the same aggravating thing (we can't comment on the Austral here, though, as that didn't have a heated windscreen fitted). But there are balancing benefits elsewhere, like the simple 'car safety' icon to the right of the wheel that rapidly switches the Rafale into your preferred calibration of 'Perso' settings with just two swift taps at the start of every drive, while the coupe-SUV also has one of those fancy 'Solarbay' panoramic sunroofs with the advanced opacifying glass in place of a flimsy blind. It looks fantastic in operation, although lord knows what one of these would cost to replace if some drunkard decided to walk over the roof of your Rafale at night and ended up cracking the Solarbay's surface...
Practicality
Legroom in the back of the Renault Rafale is excellent and headroom is not too bad either, while the coupe-SUV commendably has a completely flat floor - like a full EV - across the second row to make seating three people in the back seem feasible, rather than fanciful. That is, if the two people in the outer seats aren't using the multipurpose armrest that folds down in the rear of the Rafale instead.
There's then a capacious 525-litre boot at the back of the Renault, accessed by a powered tailgate as you'd expect of a car of this class and size, plus all the French company's usual neat tricks dotted around the passenger compartment - comprising not just that rear armrest, but also the sliding tray for the wireless smartphone charging pad that covers some impressive transmission-tunnel stowage features, as well as large and lined door pockets. The rear seatbacks also split-fold in a 40:20:40 ratio, so this is not one of those attractive, swoopy SUVs which places substance as completely subservient to style. Aside from a narrow view through the rear window for the driver, everything else about the Rafale is helpful and practical.
Performance
Our example of the coupe-SUV came with Renault's latest take on the E-Tech Hybrid format. This is the same as that aforementioned Austral, in that there's a 130hp/205Nm turbocharged three-cylinder 1.2-litre petrol up front, augmented by two electric motors rated at 50kW/205Nm and 25kW/50Nm respectively. These are powered by a 2kWh, 400-volt lithium-ion battery, but this petrol-electric technology does require that the Rafale E-Tech Hybrid is fitted with the questionable multimode automatic dog 'box, which the company cites as a six-speeder because it comprises four cogs and then those two e-motors as well.
On a positive note, and despite its physical size and the li-ion power pack, the Rafale E-Tech Hybrid only weighs 1.65 tonnes at the kerb, and with what look like modest quoted system peaks of 200hp and 205Nm, Renaut can still claim a brisk 8.9-second 0-62mph time for this powertrain in the SUV. For those wanting more power, there's a 300hp plug-in hybrid (PHEV) available in the Rafale range, but it's only offered on two of the four specifications available (it's an option at Techno Esprit Alpine level and also the only engine you can choose for the flagship Atelier Alpine grade) so you can't have it with this high-ranking Iconic Esprit Alpine trim.
Nevertheless, the E-Tech Hybrid dishes up a suitably likeable driving experience, when it comes to motive power and braking. The drivetrain is largely cultured, thanks to the smooth and characterful 1.2 triple doing the donkey work up front, and if you do mash the accelerator further down into its arc of travel, the Rafale will hitch up its skirts and hustle forward with a sense of some purpose. It's never obdurately harsh or noisy, even at higher revs, the throttle response is reasonably crisp across the rev range, and then the brakes are nicely calibrated to balance off proper friction stopping power with their regenerative deceleration capabilities. In fact, we're underselling the Rafale E-Tech's stopping there - use the paddles on the wheel to ramp the regen up to the maximum 'level four' effect and the way it slows down by dint of the driver lifting off the throttle alone is little short of brilliant. It feels organic, never comes across as grabby or too intense, and you can easily modulate your manners behind the wheel to get some serene one-pedal driving done after only a few miles of acclimatisation.
So, for all that, it's a shame we once again focus our negativity on that needlessly convoluted transmission. As we've said elsewhere, it's a heck of a lot better now than it was in those early Arkanas, and it also feels superior in this 1.2-litre set-up than it does in the concurrent
1.6-litre E-Techs lower down the Renault product tree - maybe it just prefers working with a turbocharged engine than a nat-asp one - but, in terms of its shift patterns and mannerisms, and the general refinement of the system, it's still nowhere near up to snuff compared to a well-sorted DCT. You get that same pseudo 'flat spot' from it in the 35-50mph zone, and it really struggles with any sudden changes of throttle angle, especially if it is going through a switch from one cog to another (or to/from an e-motor) when you do perform such a lead-footed action.
At least the Renault does spend a lot of its time trying to run in electric mode and, across 196 miles of mixed-roads driving in a week (where we weren't ever driving in a conspicuously fuel-saving manner, although by the same token we certainly weren't mercilessly caning the Rafale everywhere), it gave back a serviceable 41.3mpg. Admittedly, that's some way shy of the claimed 60.1mpg, but that figure would probably be realistically in reach on longer motorway runs, while the Rafale also comfortably beat the Austral with the same drivetrain's efforts from the week before (38.1mpg). That's likely because there's only 9kg between them (in favour of the Austral) and the coupe's bodywork is more aerodynamic. But it might also be because we were driving the Austral harder than the Rafale, and that brings us neatly onto the next section...
Ride & Handling
Hmm. While by no means getting down to the Arkana's disappointing level of chassis tune, the Rafale does still feel a bit confused from behind the wheel. It's fitted with 4Control, Renault's four-wheel-steering system, in order to give it some agility, but the suspension is once again on the 'slightly too firm' side of things for a luxury SUV like this. Without wishing to seem like we want to keep kicking the Arkana while it is down, at least the Rafale never became as crashy and disconsolate as that former model, yet there are still too many occasions on lumpy tarmac where the vertical body movements of the E-Tech Hybrid are overtly abrupt, speaking of an intransigence in the suspension set-up. It also doesn't help that there's a lot of unsprung mass at each corner of the Rafale, but if we might redress the balance somewhat, we can say that its low- and high-speed ride quality on smoother surfaces is excellent, while rolling refinement levels are suitably decent across the board as well.
This slight grittiness in the suspension would perhaps be more forgivable if the Rafale was surprisingly engaging to steer. However, though it is not without merit in this regard - the steering is nice and clean, and body and wheel control are as good as anything else in this sort of market sector, at the very least - there doesn't feel like there's an awful amount of adjustability in the chassis to unlock, and from that you further extrapolate that there isn't any great degree of enjoyment that might one day be unearthed in the handling department.
A big part of that is down to the 4Control. It undoubtedly makes itself felt, especially in lower-speed corners where the Rafale E-Tech has a slightly nervous, darty way it dives into a corner, and there's still that 'centre-pivoting' sensation in higher-pace curves that isn't the most natural cornering feel when you're pushing up to the limits of grip. We encountered this some years back when the
last of the petrol-powered Meganes was launched, and going even further back (and hideously dating this particular writer), it was the same experience at the 2008 first drive of the old
Laguna Coupe too (it wasn't yours truly that wrote the review of that car for this site, but we were there for another outlet, to our eternal shame).
The overall conclusion to the way the Rafale drives, then, is that it's undeniably capable and adeptly swift in the corners, but it doesn't feel appreciably sharper than a well-tuned SUV would - somewhat making the 'coupe' aspect of its character appear superfluous - and, outright, the handling isn't 100 per cent confidence-inspiring. So you simply throttle back in it and prepare to cruise languidly through the day, only to be jarringly reminded that that's not going to happen, thanks to the overly rigorous suspension settings. A bit of a vicious cycle, then, in that you either speed up and become moderately disappointed at the so-so roadholding, or slow down and focus your attention on the relative lack of ride comfort.
Value
Rafales start at less than £40,000, but not for this grander Iconic Esprit Alpine specification. With just the aforementioned two-tone warpaint fitted, our car came in at £45,945 - and 46 grand seems a lot for a car which isn't that thrilling for dynamics. It is, of course, supremely well-equipped for that pile of cash, with a lot of luxury items on top of the expected regular bits of kit fitted as standard, and Renault also reckons it has a maximum range of 683 miles using all of its petrol-electric resources; rangy. But if we were spending this much money on something that's
not from one of the manufacturers that has always traditionally been considered premium, we think we'd want it to drive with a bit more vivacity than the E-Tech Hybrid. Which is why the 300hp plug-in arguably makes a lot more sense, because it only adds £3,500 to an E-Tech Hybrid Techno Iconic Alpine's figure (resulting in a tag of £45,695 as a PHEV), and even the range-topping Atelier Alpine is still less than £50,000, if not by much - 305 quid, to be exact.
Verdict
We like a lot about the Renault Rafale E-Tech Hybrid and it's a massive step on from the underwhelming Arkana which laid the template for its existence. Striking looks, a superb cabin, loads of practicality and a generally amenable drivetrain (save for the clunky gearbox) are highlights, and if you can temper your enthusiasm with the throttle while simultaneously keeping it away from the bumpiest of back roads, it'll put on an assured, cultured and largely excellent display. But we can't help feeling some more power, a dual-clutch transmission and a slightly more sophisticated suspension tune would unlock a lot more potential in the Rafale's svelte form. The PHEV is therefore the choice of the line-up so far, but there's a lot of promise in the Rafale and, accordingly, it deserves a good slice of showroom success for what it is as the E-Tech Hybrid.