Renault 5 E-Tech: we tested Reno, its voice assistant aided by ChatGPT
A new fad among car manufacturers, ChatGPT has particularly attracted DS, Peugeot, Citroën and Volkswagen. It is now Renault's turn to integrate this artificial intelligence (AI) tool into its latest model, the electric R5.
Renault has chosen to bring ChatGPT to life through the voice of Reno, an avatar which takes the shape of a diamond. The openR link system of the new Renault 5 being based on Android Automotive OS, it still integrates the Google Assistant, which Reno completes. We are therefore dealing with two different voice assistants, one which responds to the command “Ok Google”, and the other to “Hey Reno”. This keyword detection proved effective during our test, without any unwanted activation.
Real innovation or just a gadget?
Reno is based on GPT-3.5 and not on GPT-4 Turbo, as was wrongly indicated to us during the presentation of the production version of the Renault 5. Certainly faster, GPT-3.5 was however trained on datasets dating from September 2021, and therefore cannot answer current questions.
Still in beta version, Reno did not particularly impress us during our test. Of course, it is always fun to exchange with ChatGPT, but the AI quickly shows its limits in a use for which it was not designed. She also seems to have been pushed to give shorter answers than in writing.
Reno hasn't been able to tell a real story to our fictional children, and while he answers cultural questions well enough, his answers don't add much more than the gentle reading of a Wikipedia page by the Google Assistant. In short, if there is something to impress the children, we doubt that all customers will find regular use for it.
We nevertheless appreciate the possibility of being able to control certain vehicle functions by voice. It is thus possible to ask Reno to program battery charging, for example. However, we imagine that customers could quickly be lost, since some of the functions of Reno are already provided by the Google Assistant. If you want to change the temperature of the air conditioning, for example, both assistants can help you, while for other requests, only one of the two has the capacity.
“Reno is also programmed to respond with answers programmed by Renault to the 200 questions most asked by customers: for example 'Hey Reno, how can I connect my phone via Bluetooth' or 'Hey Reno, how to change a wheel'”indicates Renault. This is already a use that seems a little more interesting to us, although we would be in favor of a single voice assistant rather than two.
