The Renault Filante concept electric vehicle (EV) has completed a 1,000km (621 mile) drive in 10 hours, on a single battery charge.
The EV, which uses the same 87kWh battery as the Renault Scenic E-Tech, was driven at an average speed of 63mph.
Renault said that the Filante finished the run with 11% battery remaining, meaning it could have covered an additional 120km (62 miles).
The Filante consumed 7.8kWh/100km during the run.
To maximise efficiency, the car’s design was refined following wind tunnel tests, while it uses steer-by-wire, brake-by-wire, lightweight materials and 3D-printed components in order to keep weight down to 1,000kg.
Sandeep Bhambra, chief designer at Advanced Renault, said: “The overarching goal, from the first sketches to the final test-track drive, was absolute efficiency.
“That’s the hallmark of a record-breaking car – and it mirrors Renault’s pioneering spirit and tradition since its inception in 1898.
“A lot like the 1925 40 CV and the 1956 Étoile Filante, Filante Record 2025 was engineered to become the first road-worthy car to drive 1,000 km at over 100 km/h without recharging, with an 87 kWh battery exactly like the one powering Scenic E-Tech electric.
“This accomplishment took a lot of exacting work on several fronts – ultra-efficient aerodynamics of course, the low-rolling-resistance tyres, the lightweight materials (including carbon fibre and 3D-printed aluminium components) and advanced technical features (steer-by-wire for instance).
“Teams of experts from Renault and its partners Michelin and Ligier worked on every aspect of Filante Record 2025’s design to demonstrate that EVs can now travel long distances without recharging, even at sustained speeds.”
The run took place at the UTAC test track in Morocco, on 18th December 2025.
Three drivers completed a total of 239 laps of the 4km circuit.
Jocelyn Mérigeault, aerodynamics engineer at Renault, said: “The wind-tunnel tests last spring showed us exactly what our computer simulations had hinted at: that Filante’s drag coefficient was too high.
“It was close to 0.40 and we had to bring it down to about 0.30. We realised that, to get there, we needed to go back to the drawing board and take another look at several aspects of the design and architecture.
“So we made bold changes – redesigning the front and rear wheel fairings, which were where most of the drag was coming from.
“But we also wanted to keep the 40 CV vibe, that artful balance between remarkable performance and fetching looks.
“We streamlined the ‘wings’, and actually rearranged the architecture, detaching them from the central structure and mounting them directly on the wheels.
“This freed up the airflow around the mechanical components – the suspension, control arms and transmission – which had been obstructing a lot of air before.
“Then we shrank the air inlets and outlets as much as we could to get rid of any parasitic drag. Filante was inherently aerodynamic from the outset.
“What we did was fine-tune it to unlock its full potential and enable it to meet our performance targets.”
