On May 19, Agneta Dahlgren, Head of Design for the Kadjar range, the new Mégane, the new Scénic and Electric Vehicles, was named Woman of the Year 2016 by the independent organisation Women And Vehicles in Europe (WAVE)
Several women held key positions alongside Agneta during the design of the new Scénic, including fellow members of the design team and colleagues working in sales, which are due to begin in October.
Also, with just days to go before the wraps come off the new Grand Scénic on May 24, we bring you a collection of drawings and videos that tell the story behind the new Scénic’s design.
Agneta Dahlgren was named Woman of the Year 2016 by the independent organisation WAVE (Women and Vehicles in Europe) yesterday (May 19).
The annual Woman of the Year award is based on a vote by automobile industry journalists of both genders.
By singling out Agneta Dahlgren, Groupe Renault’s Head of Design for C-Segment and Electric Vehicles, the panel – in keeping with the organisation’s objectives – wished to highlight the career of a woman who can serve as a role model for young women seeking work in the automobile industry, and whose position is key to her company and to the automobile industry as a whole.
On both accounts, Agneta was a unanimous choice.
After studying design engineering in her native Sweden, Agneta Dahlgren moved to France in 1990 to round off her Industrial Design studies at Compiègne’s University of Technology (UTC). She has lived in France ever since, working exclusively for Renault which offered her an initial work placement opportunity in 1991.
She went on to join the Corporate Design’s concept car department where she gained a more prospective overview which she was able apply from 2000 as Project Leader working on the design of several vehicles, from trucks (within the framework of a partnership between Renault and Volvo Trucks) to small city cars. She held this position for almost 10 years.
It wasn’t long before her cross-functional vision, her ability to take technical constraints into account, her aptitude for negotiation and her work on the electric Renault ZOE were noticed.
When Laurens van den Acker took over as SVP, Renault Corporate Design in 2009 with the intention of creating a new identity for the brand, he appointed Agneta Dahlgren as Head of Design for the strategically-important C Segment. The new Renault Mégane, which was introduced at the beginning of 2016, and the new Renault Scénic, which is due to go on sale in October, were both designed under her leadership.
“The new Scénic’s ideal proportions and highly emotional styling have reinvented the MPV segment,” notes a member of the WAVE panel. “Agneta Dahlgren has worked on the design of models that have allowed Renault to express its new identity in a very natural manner. Along with the new Mégane, it is certainly a model that will help to drive the brand’s growth.”
During the design of the new Scénic, Agneta worked alongside Jérémie Sommer (exterior design) and Maxime Pinol (interior design) and is particularly proud to have succeeded in breaking away from traditional compact MPV cues: “It’s not because you’re a mother or a father that you don’t want to travel in a family car that is sexy,” she smiles.
New Scénic Product Manager Cécile Sobole also played a key part in the new Scénic’s design. “The new Scénic is an even more desirable car than its predecessor. All its occupants enjoy a status-enhancing experience. The aim was to produce a model that is in tune with today’s age and adapted to the lives of modern families. Examples of this include the new aviation-style folding tables for rear passengers and the rear seats which can be folded automatically to form an all-flat floor.”
The new Scénic’s Programme Director Irina Zaretskaya stressed the importance of safety and comfort for families: “The structure of the new Scénic’s seats is the same as that used for the new Espace’s seats, and we have also carried over the crossmember-free panoramic glass roof which makes sure that front and rear occupants alike benefit from a bright cabin. In terms of safety, the new Scénic comes with a suite of 10 or so driver aids, including Active Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Detection which, for the first time in the segment, is standard equipment for all versions!”
