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Renault has opened a new flagship showroom in London's Battersea Power Station shopping centre, designed to show off its dramatically evolved brand image and new-generation electric cars to the British public.
Similar in its conception to the shopping centre showrooms operated by Polestar, Tesla and Genesis, the new 'Rnlt' store is "designed to provide visitors with a comprehensive and immersive experience of the Renault brand".
It is the latest in a fast-growing network of these new urban showrooms, which Renault's chief marketing officer Arnaud Belloni told Autocar has been designed to address the lack of brand visibility in cities.
"We don't see dealerships any more in city centres," he said. "So I decided to think about a retail concept which is the right one to display [Renault's EVs] in city centres."
The Rnlt spaces – the name contracted to reflect the stores' smaller footprints than traditional dealerships – are designed to serve as a retail 'hub' at the centre of a wider network of Renault retail and service centres outside of the city.
Designed primarily to showcase Renault's new line-up of electric cars (including the 5, 4, Megane and Scenic), the London site is far smaller than a traditional dealership, at around 200sqm, but the aim is as much about boosting Renault's brand visibility as it is simply selling cars.
Belloni explained the thinking: "Obviously the aim of this is to sell cars, but in a fancy way – not in a 'fast and furious' way. Many brands do not understand their job properly, because they think that when you show a car, you must sell it. But in fact, it takes time.
"More particularly with electric cars: you don't sell an EV in 10 minutes like when you sell an ICE cars, because people have been used to ICE for 100 years but people are not used to EVs."
Belloni added that it takes "basically double the time" to sell an EV "because you have to break a lot of constraints that people think about", including charging infrastructure, warranties and reliability.
"So that's the story behind the short-format stores in city centres: we sell cars, we display cars, we sell merchandise, people can wait and work…" he explained, highlighting that salespeople will be on hand to offer a more traditional dealership experience but the spaces can otherwise be used much more casually and in an educative manner.
While the initial line-up of cars on display will be electric, Belloni suggested the new Clio will be added from early next year, given its inherent urban focus.
Alongside the various new cars on display, Renault is displaying its wide range of branded merchandise – including skateboards, clothing, scale models, snow globes and even handmade foosball tables costing nearly £4000.
There is also a vinyl bar, run in partnership with Sony Music, where visitors can sit and listen to records via personal headphones.
The thinking behind the diversification is that "when people are buying for love, they are not buying a product, they are not even buying a brand, they are buying a story," Belloni said. "We tell a story."
Renault chose this site – located conveniently on Battersea's Electric Boulevard – due to its high footfall: the repurposed power station has welcomed more than 30 million visitors since opening in 2022, making it one of the UK's busiest urban retail spaces.
It forms part of a new global network of Rnlt stores, with spaces already open in Paris, Milan, Brussels, Madrid, Rome, Rotterdam and Berlin. There will be 44 in total by the end of the year, with a store in Copenhagen due to open early next month.
Belloni told Autocar that Rnlt stores will only be sited in highly residential areas where there is already a "butcher, a baker and a pharmacy – people live there".
That's why the brand chose not to set up in a larger dedicated shopping centre like nearby Westfield, which does not have "the right image or audience".
Rnlt London's opening comes in the same week that Renault staged a grand reopening for its flagship showroom on Paris's Champs-Elysées following three years of renovation work.
Dubbed 'Le Défilé Renault' (the Renault Parade), the revamped showroom – the city's oldest, having opened in 1910 – is similar to the new London site in its design and conception but nearly 10 times bigger.
It also has a dedicated merchandise shop, an in-house restaurant and a 170m spiral ramp that runs up through the centre of the building.
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