FUTURE PROOF
Heard the one about car companies being like oil tankers? Cobblers, says Paul Horrell
On his second day as boss of Renault in January 2020, Luca de Meo walked past the design studios and spotted a model of an orange hatchback. A designer’s side-project really, done with no expectation of seeing the light. “It looked like a 5,” says De Meo, “And I said: ‘We must do this.’ It was designed to be smaller but we put it on an EV package and it worked. Sometimes it’s not about a big strategy. It’s just gut feeling.”
Then the world got dark. During the worst days of the pandemic, car commentators often pondered the question: “Which company won’t survive?” Many pointed at Renault. De Meo had been hired to resuscitate an ailing company that was taking more crushing hits. “It’s still in bad shape,” he says now. But inside things were, and are, changing fast.
De Meo doesn’t claim all the credit. But he’s proof that the old adage about car companies being like oil tankers (they’re so big they need ages to turn around) is actually cobblers. A good new boss will see potential and fast-track it, while seeing waste and staunching it. The early days are all about quick, smart decisions. And it’s very much about the cars.
He quickly canned seven planned cars. Which? He explains Renault was doing “ridiculous” numbers of different localised
“A NEW GOOD BOSS WILL SEE POTENTIAL AND FAST-TRACK IT, WHILE STAUNCHING WASTE”
cars for different regions. “Costs went up to prepare for making five million cars a year. Which wouldn’t happen.” Plus Renault was intending to persist with the big hatchbacks and people carriers that fashion is casting off.
Instead, de Meo took just a few weeks to fashion a new plan. More EVs, taking advantage of Nissan synergies (the next Megane, the 5 and even a new 4), plus crossovers, many with PHEV tech. His luck, he says, was to arrive just after Renault had finished spending huge sums on developing the excellent E-Tech hybrid system and finessing electric-car tech: “A rich company would have done that, and we’re not.” Still, Renault, and de Meo, can now reap the benefit.
“The designers had been told retro was not OK. I disagree.” As Fiat boss, he pushed another show car to production – the 500. He’s adamant its success was about affordable style. The 5 will be the same – much cheaper than a Honda e.
His student dissertation was in business ethics. He’s resisted calls from the city investors to cut factories. “Analysts like blood. But the responsibility of business leaders is to protect jobs.” So the historic factory at Flins has been repurposed refurbishing cars and EV batteries.
Renault has another great advantage: Dacia. No one else manages to build good cheap cars at a profit. So de Meo plans a bigger range, and will rebadge them Lada, another Renault company. Likely an easier win in Russia than those planned expensively localised Renaults.
And behold. Sorting that unglamorous stuff leaves headroom to save previously endangered Alpine.