R&D at Renault

Four research focuses

Renault has set four main research focuses:

• Safety: Pursue one of Renault's strategic goals to further widen its lead in safety,
• Environment and energy: Ensure Renault cars and Renault business operations are ever more respectful of the environment,
• Traveling comfort: Push ahead to further enhance the sensation of traveling comfort and driving pleasure afforded by Renault cars,
• Mobility and services: Improve access to mobility for all and develop services to make motorists’ lives easier. 

Innovation process

All Renault’s R&D projects follow a highly structured process governing smooth transition from research to development then through to implementation. Program results are systematically examined, step by step, to verify technical and economic feasibility and make sure work stays on track with respect to functional specifications.

Research cooperation

Renault takes part in many French and European research programs. 
Joint programs of this type bring many advantages:

• Pooled costs;
• Broader understanding and expanded skills base;
• Insights into other approaches;
• Opportunities to learn from and benchmark with other major industrial groups. 

Key figures

In 2005, Renault took part in 61 research programs on a wide range of topics, including fuel cells, accidentology, acoustics and multimedia. These programs fielded working groups varying in size from 5 to 50 partners! 

Four cooperation areas

Consistent with its own in-house R&D policy, Renault contributes to cooperative research programs in four main areas.

Environment and energy. Renault is involved in 20 or so projects, including:

• European NICE project, on new technologies for internal combustion engines (homogeneous-charge engines, camless engines, etc.);
• RESPIRE project, on development of a power module for fuel-cell vehicles. 

Safety: Renault is involved in 13 projects, including:

• European TRACE project, on European accidentology database; 
• PREVENT project, on new accident-avoidance systems (pre-crash systems, inter-vehicle communication systems, etc.). 

Vehicle features (acoustics, ergonomics, air conditioning, etc.): Renault is involved in several projects, including:

• MIMOSA, on innovative methods for modeling of aeroacoustic sources;
• SILENCE, on mapping of noise sources in urban areas. 

Engineering services, for optimizing vehicle design and development. Renault is involved in several projects, including:

• ODAS, on optimizing distortion in welded assemblies;
• ALUMOPLA, on aluminum injection moulds for plastic parts