Laurens van den Acker: ‘The Renault Triber is a completely new vehicle with over 90 percent new parts.’

Laurens van den Acker, executive vice-president, Corporate Design, Groupe Renault, speaks to Sumantra B Barooah at the global unveil of the new Triber in New Delhi.

What were the three key elements that you gave your team as part of your brief to develop the Renault Triber?
Ultra-modular, absolutely modular, very spacious and it needed to be the second big breaker in India.

Is it developed on the CMF-A+ platform?
Yes, it is on the CMF platform. But essentially it is a completely new vehicle, with over 90 percent new parts because it is much wider and bigger.

What is the commonality between the Triber and the Kwid?
Not very much. Because we made the Triber wider and larger, there’s not much to use (common parts), because the car is a completely new vehicle.

How much wider and larger is the Triber compared to the Kwid?
The Triber is 1739mm wide, 3990mm long and 1662mm tall. It is substantially wider and longer, it has a long 2636mm wheelbase, so it's quite spacious. To make the seating in a 2-3-2 configuration, we had to make the car very wide. When you sit in the front row, you have a wide console, so the distance is quite wide, which allows for enormous amount of storage space as well.

You have made CMF platform quite modular, and the Triber is the first of the body on platform apart from the Kwid. Could it be followed by another body style?Potentially, yes. To develop a new platform just for one car would be a very inefficient move especially in today's times. At Renault, we always try to develop a platform, which gives us a potential to have another derivatives on it.

Why not have a SUV on this because that's what the global and India trend has been? Is there something in the pipeline?
Why not? Maybe.

Also read: Renault India reveals seven-seater Triber

After Maruti, Renault India could exit diesel segment; may invest in shared mobility