Q&A WITH LIONEL JAILLET DACIA VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT PERFORMANCE

To what extent has Dacia accelerated since Luca de Meo took over at Renault Group?

“When Luca came to the company, he already had a good idea of what could happen to Dacia. But he selected 40 people and our mission was to take each element of the plan and do a stress test on it. I was part of this. We had to ask ourselves, ‘Are the projections realistic? What are the boundaries and will there be any issues?’ We were also looking carefully at the brand positioning between Dacia and Renault. The challenge from Luca was to unlock the potential of Dacia while making sure we’re still complementary to Renault.”

Can you define what ‘unlocking the potential’ actually means? Bigger sales volumes? A wider product portfolio? Bigger profit margins?

“Well, you can talk about all of those things. We are putting some more emotional values into the brand, and we have deployed the new brand identity. But yes, there is growth in the product line; these targets were agreed before Jogger, even before the Spring [Dacia’s baby EV]. And then there are elements like the Extreme line, which is now coming across the range – this gives us some more scope within the existing line-up. We’ve already seen people looking more and more towards the upper end of our trims and ranges; this allows us to do that.”

What about cars like the Bigster? We know it’s coming, and that will take you into a completely different area of the market where you can really pull in fresh buyers. Was that even being talked about in 2020 when the plan was formulated?

“Talked about, yes. But was it fully actioned? No. It was something that we had discussed, and we had done some feasibility studies, but it very quickly became part of the plan. Because it’s something that we can do on the right platform – the same as Jogger, same as Sandero, same as the next Duster – while going into the C-segment. We think it’s an area where Dacia can have a huge impact.”

The reception to the Jogger will have helped, of course?

“Yes, it has been well received. But I’d also say that this is probably the first time that I’ve been writing a strategy and delivering a strategy in a perfect manner. Which is to say that we are not late; we are doing what we said we’d do. And we are even giving a little more than what we said we’d do. We are already doing better than some of our own projections.”

Why can’t you bring products like Bigster now? Is it about manufacturing capacity?

“Not really. What was a little bit unusual with Bigster was that Luca said, ‘I want to show the concept now,’ very soon after it was finalised, because he wanted to preview the future direction. It felt a little strange for Dacia, to be honest, because the development process is planned from 2020 to 2025. We’re testing it now and we’ve just finished customer clinics with the car. It is on track; it’s just that this glide scope was always meant to land in 2025.”