Renault chooses France as the industrial base for its electric vehicles: the manufacturer announced Thursday important investments in its hexagonal plants, representing a total of one billion euros by 2022. An amount that will be added to the 500 million announced end of 2016, for the modernization of French factories, between 2017 and the end of 2019.
“The acceleration of our investments in France for the electric vehicle will help improve the competitiveness and attractiveness of our industrial sites in France”, commented the CEO Renault, Carlos Ghosn, in a statement. “This is the concrete declination of the six-year plan” Drive The Future, announced last October, “decrypts a spokesman for his part.
New platform
More specifically, the diamond manufacturer has announced that the Douai (North) plant will host the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance’s industrial electrical platform for the production of Renault’s future battery-powered cars. “Work has begun, the first vehicle is scheduled for 2021,” said the spokesman. This factory today produces the Talisman, Scenic, and Space vehicles whose sales (157,000 units in 2017), upset by the SUV boom , are not up to expectations.
In Flins (Yvelines), the production capacity of the ZOE will be doubled (35,000 vehicles per year currently), while a new generation of this small electric city car is expected next year (although the date is not confirmed by management). Employee representatives expected the plant to host the Alliance’s electrical platform. The leaders of the diamond decided otherwise. They said, however, that the plant, which also produces Clio and Nissan Micra, will host a new platform, which will be chosen in 2019.
recruitment
Finally, the Cléon (Seine-Maritime) plant, which today produces engines and gearboxes, will see its capacity triple in electric motors. This has already been doubled from 40,000 to 80,000 units (out of the 940,000 engines produced at Cleon last year). It will increase to 240,000 units. Renault has also announced investments in Maubeuge (North), for the production of the next generation of Kangoo, including the electric Kangoo ZE.
These investments will be accompanied by additional recruitment – already announced last April. The group then proposed an amendment to its social agreement signed in early 2017, bringing to 5,000 the number of hires on permanent contracts and 235 million euros the training budget. Recruitments aimed more at developing skills than at increasing the workforce in France, given the expected departures.
Party ahead of its competitors in the electric vehicle, Renault announced in October that it would propose 8 models with battery in 2022, against 4 today (ZOE, Kangoo ZE, Fluence and Twingy). Without revealing which ones.