The upcoming Renault Duster has been teased in a nostalgic promotional video released by Renault India featuring scale models of the previous generation of the Duster SUV, which neatly transitions into epic adventure shots of the actual car. Towards the end of this video, we see the upcoming Duster, covered by a red fabric with the LED DRLs glowing. Now, the shape of this LED DRL is like an eyebrow, which is not the case for the European model, which has Y-shaped DRLs.
That’s not all, as the India-spec Duster is shown in the campaign video with a connected LED tail lamp, and as far as we can tell, no Renault or Dacia models in Europe have anything similar to this LED DRL or this tail lamp design, so these changes, at least on paper, seem to be exclusive to the Indian market. It could very well be that the Duster is getting a global facelift and India will be the first market to receive the updated model, but as of now, both of these hypotheses are equally probable.
We do expect the interior to be closely matched to that of the European model, which means a 7-inch instrument cluster and a 10.1-inch touchscreen infotainment system with wireless smartphone connectivity, and maybe even a wireless phone charger. However, material quality may be lowered to keep the prices reasonable in the highly competitive mid-size SUV segment — the OG Duster played a large part in its creation. The new Duster should get six airbags as standard, as well as a 360 degree camera.
As far as the powertrain is concerned, we are most likely to receive the 1.3-litre, turbocharged, in-line four-cylinder engine (co-developed with Mercedes-Benz and on offer in India with various A-Class and related models), which develops 156PS. We may even get the 149PS 1.6-litre strong-hybrid petrol engine option, but that’s a tad more unlikely. Also, the Duster always had AWD on offer throughout its decade-long run in India (2012-2022), and we do expect the new Duster to offer it as well. All will be revealed on January 26, 2026.
