And the European Car of the Year is: the Renault 5 E-Tech! But is this fully electric supermini really a good deal? With Rentaleye, the most advanced lease rate benchmarking tool on the market, I get to ask that question in various nuances and from multiple perspectives, giving me the specific answers my specific queries deserve.
My interest in the new R5 is not surprising. By winning its European accolade at the Brussels Motor Show last January, the new Renault 5 has already done something which even its legendary predecessor never managed. In 1973, the original R5 narrowly lost out to the Audi 80, which was crowned European Car of the Year instead.
Iconic model
For the Renault leadership, this year’s award will confirm their conviction that with the R5 E-Tech, they’ve created an extraordinary car: combining nostalgia for one of Renault’s most iconic models with the electric powertrain of the future, and bringing together cutting-edge design with affordability.
The new R5 is consciously trying to replicate what its predecessor excelled at: targeting cost-conscious customers. It made the original R5 France’s best-selling car throughout most of the 1970s and 1980s. Retailing from €25,000, the all-new R5 has the ambition to achieve similar heights of popularity, even at European level, giving both the industry-wide process of electrification (in general) and the fortunes of its French manufacturer (in particular) a good push in the right direction.
With its high profile, standout design, and reasonable pricing, the award-winning R5 E-Tech this year will certainly feature prominently on the shortlist of fleet operatives – not to mention their drivers – when looking for their next BEV. So, what I want to know is: How does this all-new, all-electric B-segment car stack up against its direct competitors?
Granular view
Rentaleye, the lease rate benchmarking tool by Experteye, offers a granular view of the lease market in eight key markets across Europe, and various ways to approach the question. One way is the Car Selector.
Select a market (let’s pick France, the R5’s home market), an energy type (Electric) and a vehicle segment (B), and we see all makes, models and versions on the market, the number of lessors offering each, and the evolution in percentage points of the rental price compared to the previous month. This overview also includes the minimum and maximum list price at which each version is offered, allowing me to confirm the R5 is at the affordable end of the spectrum.
But those are list prices, and I’m looking for lease rates. And preferably for a much more targeted selection than the more than 100 model versions populating the first, wider sample.
A ‘magic wand’ allows me to compare any of the seven versions of the R5 on offer by lease companies in France to its closest competitors. Let’s take the R5 Evolution (120 hp), the version with the lowest list price (although, as the tool also shows, not necessarily the cheapest lease rate).
Comprehensive list
Just a few clicks later, I have a comprehensive list, showing comparable versions of BEVs from other brands, most in the B segment, some also in the A or C segment. A range index and range index gap indicate just how comparable those other cars are, with horsepower and kW providing further distinction. Key, however, is the average adjusted rental price, which at €503 per month indeed is at the lower end of the scale, but higher than three other cars on offer in France – even though one of those has a higher list price than this R5. The reverse is also true: one BEV has a lower list price, but a higher average adjusted rental price than this R5.
Which goes to show me that it can pay – literally so – to drill down to the most granular level when it comes to comparing and contrasting vehicle rental prices.
This, however, is just one way in which Rentaleye offers insight into lease rates. Brand and Model Analysis, as the name suggests, allows for a straight-up comparisons of average leasing rates per brand and model, but also provides insight into the evolution of these rates – again, per brand and model.
Apples and oranges
As anyone with experience comparing lease rates knows, it’s an exercise that can feel a lot like comparing apples to oranges. Two lease offers can have different months and mileages, not to mention wildly varying components in the service package (with varying conditions for including breakdown, maintenance, replacement vehicles, financial loss, etc.)
Rentaleye has the unique ability, with the flick of a switch, to extrapolate out these differences, offering a truly like-for-like (or, if you will, apples-for-apples) view on leasing rates.
Yet another point of entry into the many things Rentaleye can do is to look for Promotions, offered by the OEM channels. Here again, the difference between these promotional lease offers in terms of months and mileages can be extrapolated and homogenised, offering me a more easily comparable view of the cost of the offers.
An alternative approach here is to take the leasing players as the benchmark, which allows me to see how competitive their leasing offers are (with the OEM’s own promotional offer as a baseline). This approach is ideal if I want to compare lease offers on various specific models.
Leasing factor
This instrument also includes the option to sort the offers for their leasing factor – a number which indicates how advantageous your leasing rate is compared to the list price of a vehicle. As the colour scale used by Rentaleye indicates, higher numbers are bad, lower ones are good.
With a leasing factor of 1.72, the R5 E-Tech has among the highest scores of all its peers – indicating that the promotion offered on the electric Renault 5 isn’t as generous as those for other BEVs. Could the Renault leadership perhaps be a little bit too confident about the success of its all-new, all-electric R5?
These are just some of the many ways in which Rentaleye can go granular and get me answers to questions about the position of monthly lease rates – not just in France, but in all other key vehicle leasing markets across Europe. And not just in the B2B channel, also in B2C.
With this information, fleet operatives can generate the input they need to make informed decisions about their fleets. And, in aggregate, to determine whether the Renault 5 E-Tech will turn out to be a popular bestseller, just like its ancestor.
For more information about Rentaleye, and to order a demo, contact info@experteye.com.