Six seats only count if you can reach the last one

This week in Paris, Renault showed an electric family-car study and called it the E-Space, with room for six. It is a study, not a car you can order. A stand is good at counting seats. The desk was not on the stand. The check we can run is in the family cars we have already sat in, where six seats on a sheet and six people at a kerb are not the same thing.

The last seat is the real one

A third row earns its name when a person can reach it without climbing over a child seat, and when that person still has a place for their feet. We have sat in cars whose brochure said six and whose third row meant two small people for a short trip, knees against the seat in front. That is not six. That is four, plus a rumour.

The bag is the next test. If the boot is already full of the pushchair, the sixth seat is a cushion nobody uses. If the boot still closes with the bag inside and the seat left up, the layout is telling the truth.

The door is the other half

Getting six people in is a door question before it is a motor question. A high sill and a narrow opening turn the back seats into a favour. A number plate still has to stay readable when that car is parked tight to the kerb, because a family car spends more time there than on a turntable. None of this is a glass roof. It is the difference between a seat that is drawn and a seat that is used.

What we will keep

We will not score a study we have not sat in. We will keep the list plain: a door you can use, a last seat you can reach, a boot that still shuts, and a phone that is not the thing a child is holding because there was nowhere else. The stand can count to six. The kerb has to agree.