1 THE STAR CAR IS THIS IRRESISTIBLE RETRO FUTURIST HOT HATCH
Obvious, really. Of course Renault should combine the things it does best: chic superminis like the Clio, and fuss-free EVs like the Zoe. Of course it should make more of its heritage. Of course it should stop messing around with dowdy saloons and dated MPVs. Obvious, but it took the arrival of a new boss to see that it was not just obvious but also necessary and urgent.
And so here, just six months after Luca de Meo became chief executive of Renault, is the glorious new Renault 5 concept, an electric supermini inspired by the Clio’s hugely successful predecessor, in a similar spirit to the Honda E and Fiat 500. It’s the highly appealing physical manifestation of de Meo’s radical overhaul of the company, revealed in January.
The new Renault 5, which should be in production in 2023, has, he says, ‘a mission to be a popular car’ and to sell the idea of electric cars to the wider public. It was not already in the pipeline when he arrived. ‘We created that in the last six months. It was not there in that shape, with that level of commitment,’ de Meo tells CAR.
A bright yellow electric hot hatch that fuses old and new is also a great diversionary tactic when you’re pushing through some major changes. There are big risks to the new focus on building fewer but more expensive cars, cutting the R&D budget, rationalising the group’s operations in certain territories, and aiming to create Europe’s biggest EV plant.
But standing still would be riskier. ‘We grew bigger but not better. After a decade of expanding our geography we sell cars in 130 countries, but half of our profit comes from five European countries,’ continues de Meo. ‘And we ended up with our two main brands selling in the same price brackets.’
He sees change happening in three phases. ‘Resurrection’, which began last year, is about reducing costs. ‘Renovation’, from 2023, will bring the benefits of a new line-up. By 2025 output will go down from four million cars a year to 3.1 million. And that same year will bring ‘Revolution’, when Renault becomes a player in data, energy services and more.
‘Today we are a car company integrating tech. Tomorrow we want to be
a tech company integrating cars,’ de Meo said. We’ll see. But as far as the cars go, Renault will be putting 80 per cent of its vehicles on three Alliance platforms. The number of core engine families will be halved from eight to four. And because quality will go up, so will prices – ‘We will increase our average price by 5000 euros by 2023, and by 7000 euros by 2025’ – while variable costs per car will drop €600. A lot of expensive EV development work has already been done, and will soon bear fruit with the electric Megane. ‘In 10 years we’ve halved the cost of an electric powertrain.’
A modernised, leaner organisation will reduce development time by 25 per cent: ‘New models on existing platforms will reach market in three years.’ And de Meo’s assembled a design dream team that includes ex-Peugeot chief Gilles Vidal, who led design work on the R5.
By 2025, 24 new cars will have been launched by the Groupe, at least 10 of them EVs. And even if just a couple of them are as appealing as the new R5, Renault’s revival might just work.