In a historic meeting with shareholders and investors, CEO Luca De Meo formalizes the separation: a pole destined only for battery-powered cars, a second for thermal cars at 50% with the Chinese giant.
Gianluigi Giannetti
08 November
A “metamorphosis”, as CEO Luca De Meo repeatedly defined it during that Capital Market Day that will remain in the history of the Renault group (currently about 150,000 employees) founded as a brand in 1898 and now ready to split into two distinct units. After a long series of advances including those of Official Motors, the Italian manager has made the birth of two separate poles official to shareholders and financial operators. Significantly, the first is called Ampere and will be used exclusively for the production of electric vehicles under the Renault brand, with a production target of one million units by 2031 and an expected annual growth of over 30% over the next eight years. The second entity is called Horse and will continue to deal with thermal and hybrid motor vehicles, but will be developed together with the Chinese group Geely. The Alpine brand and its zero-emission sportsmanship also play a growing role in the revolution, flanked by the new company The Future is Neutral, dedicated to material recovery, recycling and circular economy activities.
the new set-up
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Luca de Meo’s speech on Capital Market Day substantially confirmed all the rumors that have arrived in recent weeks, starting from the very profile of the structural revolution that will affect the Renault group, without however providing details on the reactions of Nissan, linked since 1999 in a Alliance inevitably destined to change. There will be time for reactions from Tokyo, especially regarding the use and dissemination of patents and technologies that are the basis of Renault’s new set-up, and which affect both the two new entities. Ampere will have about 10 thousand employees in the factories and research centers located exclusively in France, but above all it aims directly at listing on the stock exchange in 2023. The close goal is that of the introduction on the market of the new R5 in 2024 and of the R4 in 2025. , both naturally with zero-emission engines and developed on the Cmf-Ev B platform, also intended for the new Nissan Micra. Renault Megane E-Tech Electric, already on sale, is instead born on a Cmf-Ev C base, of Nissan origin, while the debut of three more models is expected in the coming years, including the Scénic.
Chinese entrance
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Horse, the second entity born from a framework agreement with the Chinese of Geely, is much more complex, with a 50% shareholding for now and destined to supply a complete range of engines and transmissions to numerous brands all over the world. , gathering the existing infrastructures, that is 17 factories and 5 R&D centers distributed on 3 continents with about 19,000 employees serving 130 countries. Officially, Horse will be an independent global supplier, capable of producing 5 million next-generation hybrid powertrains every year and developing low-emission technologies. At launch, the new company will serve several industrial customers, including Renault, Dacia, Geely Auto, Volvo Cars, Lynk & Co, Proton, but is also expected to do so with Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors Company. Precisely this point opens up unexpected scenarios. According to the agency Reuters, Horse will be based in London. It helps to remember that Geely is already included in the European car that has ownership of the Volvo brand and Lotus, in addition to the significant controlling stake in Mercedes and 50% of Smart. Nissan has given a November 15 deadline to complete negotiations and receive the necessary assurances of compliance with patents and intellectual property on technologies developed within the Alliance. On the sidelines, Renault announced a partnership with Google and oriented towards the Software Defined Vehicle (SDV) chapter, i.e. a car equipped with a shared IT platform, continuous updates and rationalized access to car data.
08 November 2022 (change 08 November 2022 | 11:38)
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