Europe’s MPV segment is losing yet another model as Renault discontinues the Scenic. The French company no longer offers the compact family van in Europe, a name that’s been around since 1996 when the first generation Scenic made its debut.
While the original Scenic sold more than 2.8 million examples during its lifecycle, its modern successor never got the attention it deserved with just 20,678 sales last year. About a decade ago, in 2011, Renault sold 160,159 Scenics on the Old continent from the then fresh third-generation model.
Gallery: 2017 Renault Scenic Initiale Paris
The French automaker doesn’t accept orders for the Scenic, though it's important to note its seven-seat sibling – the Grand Scenic – is still on sale. According to Caradisiac, however, the end of the production of the three-row multi-purpose vehicle is coming in just a few months.
The Scenic joins the Talisman, Renault's flagship sedan, which was also discontinued recently. The rise of the SUVs and the dropping demand for traditional sedan, wagon, and van vehicles forces the manufacturer to ax some of its long-standing models. The fate of the Espace doesn’t seem to be different as it is already not available for orders in certain European markets, though an official announcement about its death hasn’t been released yet.
Just last month, Citroen, one of Renault’s historical rivals, pulled the plug on the Grand C4 SpaceTourer family van with production scheduled to come to an end in July this year. Just like Renault, Citroen has been selling a multi-purpose vehicle for decades starting in 1994 when the Evasion was introduced. It was succeeded by the larger and more comfortable C8, which was discontinued in 2012.
The Volkswagen Sharan, a similarly sized MPV from Wolfsburg also sold as the SEAT Alhambra, was canceled in 2020. It seems that Ford is currently one of the very few manufacturers in Europe with an available minivan, the S-Max, which got a new hybrid powertrain in February last year.
