Renault UK boss recaps his bumper first year

You haven’t just sold more cars, but - we understand - grown profits too. That must make the dealers happy?

“We have a good network with whom we have a relationship that is improving. I admit that a few years ago it was difficult, but the point about starting from a not so great situation is that it can be improved. It won’t sky-rocket in a year, but bit by bit you can go forwards. Yes, it requires patience - five, maybe seven years - but bit by bit everything is improving. The product is better and more targeted, the brand, the acceptance by customers… we are building a sustainable business based on a plan, not a model that keeps changing.”

Will those profits be eroded as supply opens up and you have to fight for sales again?

“It will get more competitive, that’s for sure. But I doubt anyone wants to go back to having an overflow of cars again. That’s when the market goes into panic mode. It sparks a rush to find customers, which erodes margins and trust, because customers lose the confidence of knowing that the price they are paying is the best one.”

The agency model has many definitions, but setting a price is part of it. It sounds like you are in favour?

“No, I’m not. I love dealers, I love and respect the job they do in the market, how they communicate with customers and how they manage relationships with manufacturers. I think we need to respect that.

“But I also have to remain open-minded. That doesn’t mean we should never do it. The challenge of talking to customers directly is enormous and we are not able to do that today. Maybe we will be one day, so maybe in a few years we will reconsider. Today I prefer to optimise my network: I like my dealers, I need my dealers and I need them to be profitable. That doesn’t mean things won’t change, but it will be with them.

“We do need an environment where dealers and manufacturers need to be profitable, in order to make the investments in new technologies that are coming at us. You know, the car industry is not the most juicy industry when it comes to profit: a fair price must include profit.”

How will the arrival of the Renault 4 and Renault 5 change perceptions of the brand?

“Because we are small in sales terms, we need to be bold, and these are the perfect cars for us to do that. In the past four months, 80% of our sales have been electrified – I mean either fully electric or hybrid. By the end of this year, that will be 100%. I want Renault to be known for being a leading electrified brand.

“When your market share is 2%, you cannot be everything. Electrification can be our personality, and already E-Tech stands for great technology, both in terms of hybrid and full electric. But the 4 and 5 are the perfect cars to make that statement and bring a bit more character to our range. We need to talk to the heart again.

“Maybe 25 years ago people liked Renault. We were cheeky and a French brand you could love. It’s complex, but we lost that relationship by chopping and changing our range, by having quality issues and so on. We need to find the right tone again for a British audience.”

Is there a risk using heritage names means you are looking back?

“Nothing about those cars looks back except the name, and people love the names. One of the things that sets us apart from newer rivals is our heritage. New car makers can talk about all sorts of things - their electric powertrains, their connectivity and so on. We have all that too but what they don’t have is history. It’s why we started to talk about the Renault 5 on social media so far ahead of launch. It’s a hook for the whole brand.”

Give us an idea of the impact CEO Luca de Meo has had inside Renault since he arrived in 2020?

Firstly, he is a very generous and warm person: the first question he always asks me is how I am doing. He’s also impatient: he always wants you to go faster. And he’s also visionary: Mobilize, Circular Economy, Refractory… others talk about these things, we are doing them. Finally, he loves cars: he is always in the design centre. He’s the reason Dacia’s core colour is khaki green, and why the F1 blade on the new Mégane was coloured as it was. Not all CEOs are the same.

“My favourite saying he uses is that we should try things and learn from them, even if they fail. The European mentality is to want a rulebook before we do something, and to only do it if we understand perfectly how it will go. He likes to say that we are rewriting the rules, so there is no rulebook. That gives us all space to be braver.”

You also oversee Dacia in your role. It’s an incredible success story, but could it overshadow Renault?

“Renault is the mothership, but that doesn’t mean Dacia can’t overtake in some ways. Its sales are pure retail, and that’s significant. So too it plays an important role: as other OEMs go electric, super-technical and so on, it provides the antidote, in terms of mobility for all.