Peugeot RCZ revived as electric sports coupe concept

Just recap the original Peugeot RCZ for me, please?

It was an Audi TT-rivalling coupe that was a short-lived product in Peugeot’s history. Made from 2009 until 2015 in a solitary generation, there was nothing inherently wrong with the Peugeot RCZ, but it didn’t sell in anything like the numbers required to be profitable.

And so then-company-boss Maxine Picat killed it off, avec regrette, as part of a huge streamlining process for the company in the middle of last decade.

All caught up. So what about this RCZ Vision?

The underpinnings are seemingly as important as the gorgeous exterior. It sits on the STLA One platform, but the big news is the battery: Peugeot says it’s a solid-state (SSB) item, which is a technology that represents a potential silver bullet for EVs worldwide.

With SSBs, you’re supposed to get greater energy density, lower weight, fewer rare-earth-materials used in their construction, faster charging speeds, increased range, improved resistance to sub-optimal ambient temperatures… it solves the lot for electric cars, basically.

Peugeot reckons the slender 110mm-deep item sitting underneath the RCZ Vision is so efficient it can achieve up to 600km of range at a lowly electrical consumption of just 11.5kWh/100km.

It also is connected to high-power 1,000-volt architecture, while the peak output of the electric motors is 500hp. That’s some way above the old Peugeot RCZ R flagship, which fought with a ‘mere’ 270hp.

Charging times? A brief ten minutes only for 10-80 per cent on suitably powerful DC outlets, reckons Peugeot.

A word or two on the looks and interior, please

Inside, both the Hypersquare steering device (you really can’t call this a ‘wheel’ any longer) and the iCockpit dashboard array are going to make it into the next-gen E-208, so get used to the idea of interacting with them if you buy any new Peugeot in about five years’ time.

Intriguingly, Peugeot makes a big play in the press bumf about the RCZ Vision having non-annoying tech.

You can switch the central display off, for instance, and thanks to the transparent structure it then “virtually disappears from view”.

The Hypersquare itself is connected to a steer-by-wire steering system, while – for the first time on any Peugeot – the RCZ Vision has brake-by-wire too.

The manufacturer bundles these under the ‘X-by-Wire’ technologies and they’re only possible thanks to the 1,000V architecture of the STLA One platform.

On the outside, the overall design aesthetic of this show star is dubbed ‘Feline Future’. Well, Peugeot’s corporate emblem is a lion, after all.

It’s not so much that or the wider RCZ-mimicking appearance which we approve of, though. No, it’s the double-bubble glass dome serving as a roof.

The old RCZ had a double-bubble lid but it was, for obvious safety and production reasons, made of boring old metal.

Sitting under a Jetsons-like upper, however, is a moment where pure sci-fi meets reality. It also absolutely floods the Vision’s cabin with light.

Peugeot says the RCZ Vision has a “dedicated” four-seat interior, but we’d hasten to dub that as more of a 2+2 than something that could accommodate a quartet of fully grown, reasonably sized adults.

Final note on the Vision’s aesthetics, then, goes to the wheels. They’re socking great 21-inch front, 22-inch rear forged-aluminium items with a radiating-spoke design.

And the little triangular details around their rims are a nod back to the alloys on the original RCZ.

Will this make production, though? As an RCZ Mk2?

Hmm. Possibly not. As fab as the RCZ Vision is, the appetite for 2+2 coupes isn’t massive.

Although try telling Honda that, after it inexplicably – but oh-so-wonderfully – decided to resurrect its Prelude model line after a 25-year hiatus. For no real good reason. Yet one we heartily approve of.

Don’t misconstrue us, we’d be utterly delighted should Peugeot decide to green-light a second-gen RCZ of sorts, although we think you’re better off viewing the Vision as precisely that: a vision of what Peugeot’s bleeding-edge-tech EVs are going to be capable of, only a few years down the line.