Abstract:
Renault Group plans to invest more than 10 billion euros in France over the next five years to continue to promote the production of electric vehicles while developing lower-priced and more affordable models. CEO François Provost said that as long as the social and political environment allows, the company will continue the electric investment pace of the past few years.
In the past five years, Renault has invested approximately 13 billion euros in France to transform factories, production systems and supply chains to adapt to the transformation of electric vehicles. The new round of investment is not about starting over, but about continuing to expand electric vehicle production capacity on the existing basis and further solving the problem of still high prices for electric vehicles.
Provost said that one of the focus of future investments will be to make cars more affordable. For European car companies, this is increasingly important, because the competition in the electric vehicle market has gradually shifted from "whether there is a product" to "whether the price can be accepted by more consumers."
The demand for electric vehicles in France has also increased significantly recently. In September, electric vehicles accounted for 42% of new car registrations in France, a record high. Rising fuel prices since the outbreak of the war in Iran have also further increased consumer interest in electric vehicles.
The rebound in demand is being reflected in output at Renault's French plants. The company will produce about 500,000 vehicles in France in 2025 and expects output to grow by at least 25% in 2026, mainly driven by increased production of electric vehicles.
This means that Renault’s current strategy is not to simply invest more money in electrification, but to try to solve two problems at the same time: on the one hand, to expand France’s local electric vehicle production capacity, and on the other hand, to reduce terminal selling prices through scale expansion, manufacturing efficiency improvement and product redesign.
For Renault, this also means that the importance of local manufacturing in France is rising again. In the past few years, the company has made large-scale investments to convert some factories to electric vehicle production. If it invests more than 10 billion euros in the next five years, France will continue to be the core production base of Renault's electrification strategy.
Therefore, what is really worthy of attention in this round of investment is not only that the amount exceeds 10 billion euros, but that Renault is shifting the focus of the next stage of competition from "completing the electrification transformation" to "how to make electric vehicles cheaper." If this strategy can be realized, the company's future competitiveness in the European mass market will depend more on cost control and large-scale production, rather than just product technology itself.
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