Renault wants to prolong the fossil fuel era
Renault opposes the EU Commission’s Fit for 55 climate package, which will effectively ban new cars with combustion engines, including hybrids, in the EU from 2035.
At the IAA Mobility, Renault’s head of development Gilles Le Borgne argued an extension of the deadline for hybrid vehicles to 2040. The French carmakers argument is that given more time, the new vehicles would be more affordable and
“First, I must be clear that we aren’t resistant to the transition. We were the first to move to sell electric vehicles and we have more of them on European roads than any other manufacturer,” said Le Borgne. His following arguments come across quite hollow, though, as he concedes that the technology is, in fact, already available: “while we have absolute confidence that we have the technology – hybrid, plug-in hybrid and BEV are all on sale today – we don’t know if we have the customers who want it or, more significantly, can afford it.”
“Finally, and critically, we need time to adapt. Switching our factories over to these new technologies isn’t simple and adapting our workforce to it will take time. You can’t switch just like that, and such a timeline would be hard for us – and harder still when you work the supply chain into the mix. But I want to be clear: I’m not pushing back for technological reasons. We are ready. We have said that Renault will sell 90% BEV vehicles by 2030 and Alpine 100%, but we think Dacia will be closer to 10%.”
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