Why May no longer wants to be without the Espace

“And that's your wórk?” Uh, yes. Sometimes I feel almost uncomfortable when I explain what my job entails. For example, with the new Renault Espace taking a road trip through France. Not exactly a punishment. But now I've become addicted to this car and had to return it. So here you go, even my working life has a dark side. Because I have to miss all of this.

1.

The automatic parking button

My daughter discovered it (and is very happy with it), it's clearly visible on your dashboard. Press it and the recipe is overly simple. Park your car next to the car you want to park behind, press the right parking request (should it be diagonal or straight behind) and the Espace does the rest. Liesbeth Rasker, would you read along?

2.

The cruise control with distance monitoring

Cruise control is already wonderful, you enter the desired speed and can lean back comfortably. But what if a short-statured tourist with a caravan suddenly cuts in front of you? This Espace has found a solution for that; the automatic distance monitoring. It maintains the distance you want (which you can easily indicate) and it slows down until that nuisance is out of sight and you can go back to 120.

3.

The magic button

The Espace has a lot of space, but suppose you're moving (or seriously shopping) then the one touch unfolding button is something you don't want to be without. One press of the button and whoosh, whoosh, whoosh all the seats lie flat. Just be careful that there isn't another child in between.

4.

The child buttons

I always feel a bit anxious when we are driving fast on the highway and my children are stuck against the door. The Espace has a button on the driver's side that allows you to activate the child lock with a simple movement. This way they can't keep opening and closing the windows. Quite handy too.

When we turn up the music, we got booing from the back seat. The spoiled brats couldn't listen to their DVD players anymore.

They found a solution. The ‘children sleeping’ button. Actually meant for well-behaved kids who (as it should be) close their eyes in the back seat. But also perfectly suitable for spoiled monsters who want their own soundproof space. Our music, their movie.

5.

Massage

I don't need to explain that further, do I? You can set it to uplifting or relaxing and determine the strength yourself.

6.

The sound

The speakers in the Espace are from Bose and together they have done more than a thousand sound measurements to ensure that you have the very best acoustics. Hence, we kept turning up the volume knob.

7.

The blind spot warning

In your mirror, you see an image of two cars. As soon as someone is in your blind spot, those little cars light up as a warning. If you find that annoying, you can turn it off, but I found it incredibly handy, especially during a long drive.

8.

The tailgate

A click on the handle and the tailgate elegantly swoops up. Then another press of the button and it closes while you calmly walk to your seat.

9.

Also something like that

When you stop and open your door, your seat automatically moves back so you can get out more easily.

10.

Window projection

“Can you put your sunglasses in there?“ I asked this in the category of blonde, blonder, blondest while explaining the car. No, that's the head-up display which I call the window projection. It's a small perspex screen where you can see exactly how fast you're going, what the maximum speed is, and if you've typed something into the route planner, you can see that there too so you don't have to keep looking at your little screen on the right.

The same goes for this: if you don't like it, you can turn it off. And still put your sunglasses in there, for example.