Renault has done it. With a concept that looks like it rolled straight out of an art deco dream, but fully electric, the Filante Record 2025 covered more than a thousand kilometres on one battery charge. And not by crawling along at 50 km/h – no, at an average speed of 102 km/h on a test track in Morocco. In under ten hours, the thing racked up 1008 kilometres, with 11 per cent of the battery still left – enough for another 120 kilometres at motorway speeds.
What makes this so impressive? The battery is a standard 87 kWh pack, the same one found in the everyday Renault Scenic E-Tech that normally manages around 600 kilometres. No monster battery here, no creeping along in extreme eco mode. The magic lies in extreme aerodynamics – the car is essentially a sliding teardrop on wheels, with wheels that barely touch the body to cut drag – and a featherweight of just 1000 kilos. All thanks to carbon fibre, aluminium, 3D-printed parts, and clever systems like steer-by-wire and brake-by-wire.
The consumption? A ridiculous 7.8 kWh per 100 kilometres. For comparison, the most efficient production cars hover around 11-12 kWh/100 km on the motorway. This is almost like driving a diesel from the nineties, but without the exhaust and with instant torque.
Of course, this is a rolling laboratory, not something you'll pick up from the dealer tomorrow. It's a single-seater prototype, inspired by Renault's record-breakers from the 1920s and 1950s, built to prove what's possible. But the lessons are pure gold: better aero, lighter weight, smarter battery integration into the chassis. All that knowledge will trickle down into future production models, so ordinary electric cars can go further without needing a battery the size of a fridge.
And frankly, in an age when everyone moans about range anxiety, this is a proper shot in the arm. It shows that electric mobility no longer has to mean stopping every few hundred kilometres. With real focus on efficiency, you can just keep going – from Brussels to the south of France without any hassle.
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