At first, I thought the Renault Symbioz was basically a rebranding of the Renault Kadjar, while the Renault Austral looked like a new iteration of the Renault Koleos.
The French brand has often been quite successful with marketing, so why not? They wouldn’t be the first, and they certainly won’t be the last.
However, as it turned out, the story goes beyond marketing alone. It’s well known that the Renault Kadjar and Nissan Qashqai are closely related models. More importantly, they were built on the same platform.
The Renault Symbioz is based on the CMF-B modular architecture. That makes a significant difference, as the crossover was designed with hybrid technology in mind.
You can embrace electrification or remain skeptical about it, but the future is clearly moving in that direction. I don’t believe internal combustion engines will disappear entirely, yet the combination of conventional engines and electric motors is no longer just an emerging trend—it’s becoming the new standard.
As for the Renault Symbioz, it has every chance of becoming a commercial success: hybrid powertrains, more than 600 liters of cargo space, competitive pricing, and, in my opinion, a modern, attractive design.
The Renault Austral tells a very similar story. It is built on the third-generation CMF-CD modular platform, developed to support electrified powertrains and a new generation of digital technologies. In other words, it is not simply replacing one model with another—it represents Renault’s transition to an entirely new generation of crossovers.
So, the Renault Symbioz is not a direct successor to the Renault Kadjar, and the Renault Austral is not simply a new version of the Renault Koleos. Instead, both models represent a new chapter in Renault’s crossover lineup, combining modern modular platforms, electrified powertrains, and a fundamentally new approach to vehicle development.