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There are no plans for the oldest model in the Toyota RAV4's SUV size category to leave Australian showrooms anytime soon.
The Renault Koleos family SUV will remain in Australian showrooms for the “foreseeable future”, with no news on a successor to what remains the brand’s second-best seller.
Australia is one of the last places where Renault sells the current-generation Koleos, soon set to celebrate its 10th birthday globally – and nine in local showrooms.
It is soon set to be based on a two-generation-old Nissan X-Trail, as the Renault shares its DNA with the X-Trail succeeded in 2022 by a new model that, itself, is on the verge of a replacement overseas.
“We’ve still got Koleos. It'll be on sale for the foreseeable future, and we'll continue with it while there's demand for the vehicle,” Renault Australia general manager Glen Sealey told Drive.
In South Korea, where the Koleos is produced, it has been indirectly succeeded by the Grand Koleos, a slightly larger SUV developed as part of a partnership with Chinese giant Geely, using its DNA and underpinnings also beneath the Volvo XC40 small luxury SUV.
It is sold alongside the coupe-inspired Filante SUV as two ideal candidates to replace the Australian Koleos.
Both are available with petrol or hybrid power, the latter combining a 1.5-litre turbo-petrol engine with an electric motor to produce 180kW, and claim fuel consumption in the Grand Koleos under tough South Korean lab testing of 6.4L/100km.
Sealey could not confirm if the vehicles were being developed for right-hand drive, but he said giving the green light is not as straightforward as it may seem.
“There’s a lot of water to go under the bridge. I go back to what we always say: we evaluate every vehicle that we can get. First and foremost, Renault [HQ] need to make it available to us.
“Secondly, we then assess it with three criteria, which is: does it make sense for the OEM [car maker]? Does it make sense for our dealer network? And the most important thing, does it make sense for the customer?
“So if you go to a right-hand-drive program and the cost of doing right-hand drive makes the vehicle prohibitively expensive for the local market, does it make sense to do it?
“There's always a study on any vehicle, we run the ruler over any vehicle that we can access.”
Despite its age, the Koleos is the second-most popular Renault in Australia, behind only the Master van, thanks to frequent drive-away offers that currently lower its starting price to $36,990 drive-away.
That said, the 242 reported as sold so far this year represent only a fraction of the 7571 RAV4s that Toyota has delivered over the same period, and last year’s tally of 1027 Koleos deliveries is a sharp decline on 2017’s 3120 or even 2023’s 2776.
Production in South Korea rather than Europe, as with other Renault models, cuts shipping costs and time to Australia.
Alex Misoyannis has been writing about cars since 2017, when he started his own website, Redline. He contributed for Drive in 2018, before joining CarAdvice in 2019, becoming a regular contributing journalist within the news team in 2020. Cars have played a central role throughout Alex’s life, from flicking through car magazines at a young age, to growing up around performance vehicles in a car-loving family. Highly Commended - Young Writer of the Year 2024 (Under 30) Rising Star Journalist, 2024 Winner Scoop of The Year - 2024 Winner
